Miscast Broadway actors

Carol in the FOLLIES concert

Brooke Shields in Cabaret. But I’ve loved her in other stage roles.

George Gobel in Bent.

John C. Reilly as 'Stanley Kowalski' in the 2005 STREETCAR revival (opposite Natasha Richardson's 'Blanche')

Amy Irving's weird quasi-cameo in a production of LADY IN THE DARK, with a superb Victoria Clark. It felt like the director lost a bet to her, or owed her some other favor. Just random and bizarre.

Jan Maxwell in Follies and To Be or not to Be. You can put her in the most expensive dress in the world and she still looks as if she should be cleaning the toilets. Completely wrong for Phyllis, a woman who is so polished that she has lost nearly all humanity. In To Be or Not to Be she was completely unbelievable as the female lead of a theater troupe.

I remember seeing someone in "Sunset Boulevard" who was completely dreadful.

[quote]John C. Reilly as 'Stanley Kowalski' in the 2005 STREETCAR revival (opposite Natasha Richardson's 'Blanche')

Yeah, that was really unfortunate casting. Also, Aidan Quinn in that previous production of STREETCAR with Blythe Danner.

I hope someday we get to witness Timothee Chalamet’s Stanley Kowalski

Not on Broadway, but still unbelievable!

Christine Baranski as the title character in the 2006 Kennedy Center production of MAME that was supposed to be Broadway-bound but was canceled at the last minute. She's more of a Vera.

Junior Samples as Arthur in Camelot.

R4 that was the first Broadway play I saw. I was crushed by how poor it was. Natasha Richardson was ok (like Cate Blanchett, her Blanche was beat for beat exactly how you would expect her to play it) but John C Reilly was a disaster.

His friend Philip Seymour Hoffman might have been interesting.

[quote]Christine Baranski as the title character in the 2006 Kennedy Center production of MAME that was supposed to be Broadway-bound but was canceled at the last minute. She's more of a Vera.

When that casting was announced, I also thought Baranski was an odd choice for Mame and would have been better as Vera. But she was very good in the part. The character of Mame does have her pretentious aspect, which Baranski played up, but she did also have the warmth for the role when necessary, as in "My Best Girl."

R13, if there could have been any worse casting of Stanley Kowalski than John C. Reilly, it would have been Philip Seymour Hoffman. But maybe you were joking?

Katrina Lenk as "Bobbie."

Christian Hoff in Pal Joey

And Stockard Channing as Vera in PAL JOEY.

Victoria Clark's LADY IN THE DARK was not on Broadway.

Ariana DeBose as a Tony Awards host.

R18, but she is a Broadway actress. Baranki's Mame was also not on Broadway.

R18 cannot read/comprehend.

Rosie O'Donnell in anything she's ever done on Broadway, but most particularly Rizzo in GREASE and Golde in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.

It's bad enough that she can't sing, but who would buy her as the 50s school sexpot or as a Jewish fishwife?

Kristin Chenoweth in Promises, Promises

Lauren Bacall in Waiting in the Wings

Margo Channing in Aged in Wood

Seems everyone was miscast in 'Music Man'. Didn't even make a show album, which I would have bought for posterity.

EVERYONE who was EVER cast in ANY revival of Follies EVER.

Everyone who has ever played Marta in Company after Pamela Myers.

I resemble that remark!

Giggle.

R27, not entirely true, but the character of Phyllis is very difficult to cast as most actresses have no idea what the character is like. The role really requires the actress to do virtually nothing . She is far too controlled. Modern actresses want to "act!" the role.

Did Baranski have the " charm" necessary for Mame? She seems very good with hardass roles.

R31, She wore an unflattering blonde wig in the DC production.

It's obvious that Baranski wanted to attempt something different than what she had done as Mary Anne. When she was on All My Children long before she became famous (as the girlfriend of her real life husband Matthew Cowles), she played a role similar to Opal Gardner. I also found her very unique as the girlfriend of Klaus Von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune", seemingly cold in appearance, but quite lovely as a woman. But as Mame (which I've watched in a bootleg), she tries, but doesn't fully pull it off. Harriet Harris as Vera and Emily Skinner as Gooch seemed to be better cast.

I also saw Christine Ebersole in a filmed production from Paper Mill. She was more miscast than Baranski, and had no warmth.

Ariana DeBose in "Summer: The Musical."

She didn't have the range...

Madonna in Speed the Plow

Peter Allen in Legs Diamond

Baranski and Ebersole in " Bosom Buddies" at 2:08.

Liam Neeson as Oscar Wilde and Tom Hollander as Bosie in THE JUDAS KISS by David Hare. The play wasn't much either, but maybe with a better cast it would have worked better.

I gather the London revival with Rupert Everett and Freddie Fox was much better, though the film Everett subsequently directed, THE HAPPY PRINCE, which covers much of the same material, is a draggy bore. I first thought it was a film adaptation of Hare's play but Everett has the only writing credit.

I once thought that Sigourney Weaver would make an interesting Phyllis (she has the long legs and height for a showgirl) but I have no idea if she can sing or could ever handle the dancing. She's obviously too old now.

[quote] who would buy her as the 50s school sexpot or as a Jewish fishwife?

Maybe not the Jewish part, but Rosie is on the money as fishwife.

Supposedly Sigourney Weaver was going to play Phyllis in 2001, but changed her mind.

This is about roles which were miscast, not about speculating who would be good in Follies. There are numerous threads for that.

Gwen Verdon as 'Lola' in the film version of DAMN YANKEES.

Granted, she originated the role on stage, but for the movie they needed someone more convincingly sexy/seductive.

R43, and about 15-20 years younger. The whole point of the character is that, like Joe Hardy, she sells her soul to the devil for youth and beauty.

R4, Chris Meloni was offered Stanley in the Roundabout “Streetcar,” but got cold feet and backed out. Don’t know if he would’ve been good, but he would’ve LOOKED great!

Replacements are where the worst mistakes are often made.

Ally Sheedy and Taye Diggs as “Hedwig” were both disasters.

Raquel Welch in Victor/Victoria was a nightmare, onstage and off.

And Robert Sean Leonard as Harold Hill was painful to watch. Not only was he completely at sea onstage, but I’m not sure he’d ever SEEN a musical before.

Chris Meloni would have been physically perfect for Stanley and he can do brute very well. He could have been excellent.

Christie Brinkley as Roxie in Chicago. Couldn't act, sing, or dance. Felt like the homecoming queen getting the lead in the school musical where you simply admired her for not falling on her face for the whole two and half hours.

I saw both the Baranski MAME and the Ebersole MAME live. Neither worked, in part because the surrounding productions failed to deliver the required glamor and in part because yes, neither talented leading lady was quite right.

Both were saddled with Veras who should have been much better. Ebersole had Kelly Bishop, whose tart way with a 1-liner should have been ideal, but who phoned it in to a degree shocking in a Tony-winning professional. Baranski's Vera was the great Harriet Harris, frightfully misdirected to shriek her way through the part. That production was also my sole live experience of Emily Skinner in which she did NOT knock me out. I blame the talentless Eric Schaeffer.

Then again, MAME itself is perhaps an insurmountable problem. An Encores! version could be great fun with the right leading lady, but beyond that . . .

When Russell Crowe hit the international big time with L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, I thought that someone should hurry up and cast him as Stanley Kowalski. Never happened, alas.

[quote] Jan Maxwell in Follies and To Be or not to Be. You can put her in the most expensive dress in the world and she still looks as if she should be cleaning the toilets.

True but she "looked" like she should be cleaning toilets. She's dead.

Stritch in The King and I sounds so strange... then you remember she was -- for some inexplicable reason -- considered a sort of straight leading lady in lots of things.

Goofy Nathan Lane as suave Castilian Gomez Addams.

Jan Maxwell is dead? Oh, my God, that's terrible. I just sent her a chain letter. There's a dollar I'll never see.

Patti LuPone in any role requiring subtlety, class and/or charm -- like Vera Simpson in the Encores! PAL JOEY. (Yes, I know that that wasn't Broadway.)

R53 Yes, Patti should have retired before Evita.

[quote] the great Harriet Harris, frightfully misdirected to shriek her way through the part.

That is Harriet Harris left to her own devices. She needs a *very* strong director to rein her in. I suspect Baranski was taking all of the director's attention and everyone thought Harris would be able to fend for herself.

Katharine Hepburn in Coco, at least from clips that I've seen. I'm mystified as to how that came to be. She looks nothing like Chanel, and from what I've heard, didn't even attempt a French accent. Yet audiences apparently ate it up night after night and it made a bundle.

Bette Davis is Miss Moffett. Apparently, she would forget the dialogue and just start reciting famous lines from her movies and talk to the audience.

R56, Ginger Rogers later played both roles in regional/touring productions.

Imagine if Audrey Hepburn had played Coco

Denis O'Hare as Oscar in Sweet Charity. I usually love him but he gave a performance that read as if he wanted to be anywhere but on that stage.

Maxwell in Follies worked for me 100%. This was a woman who almost extinguished her soul, except for a few embers that finally exploded. Her work in City of Conversation was incredible. What a loss.

[quote]Denis O'Hare as Oscar in Sweet Charity. I usually love him but he gave a performance that read as if he wanted to be anywhere but on that stage.

I hear he hated every moment of the experience. I'm not sure why, but maybe it was just he felt it was exhausting to perform, I forget.

Alec Baldwin completes the trifecta of totally miscast Stanley Kowalskis. He tried, but nobody was even paying him any mind as Jessica Lange was so incredible as Blanche. If anyone says different don't believe them, she was incredibly good.

[quote] He tried, but nobody was even paying him any mind as Jessica Lange was so incredible as Blanche. If anyone says different don't believe them, she was incredibly good.

Except she got rotten reviews from everyone and he got a Tony nomination. But yeah, we'll believe you.

Helen Lawson in *That Tubman Dame!*

Everyone who's played the Baker's Wife in Into the Woods after Joanna Gleason.

[quote]Peter Allen in Legs Diamond

It takes a special talent to write yourself a role and then be miscast in it.

r58 Whether rumor or fact IDK, but didn't the producer or casting director assume he'd get Audrey when an underling was told to "Get me Hepburn."?

R66, Wasn't Coco Chanel wary of Hepburn's casting and it took a meeting between the two of them to assuage her?

R66 that Audrey/Katharine mix-up was during the making of SABRINA, Audrey's second American film. ROMAN HOLIDAY, which made her a star and won her the Oscar, hadn't been released yet. Therefore, when called upon to dress Ms. Hepburn, Givenchy assumed it was for Katharine, who was far better-known in the early 1950s.

[quote]Alec Baldwin completes the trifecta of totally miscast Stanley Kowalskis. He tried, but nobody was even paying him any mind as Jessica Lange was so incredible as Blanche. If anyone says different don't believe them, she was incredibly good.

To repeat a point I've made before: From all reports, Lange was tremendously inconsistent from one performance to the next during the run of that STREETCAR. Some people felt she was brilliant, others felt she was at sea. I only saw the show once, and at that performance, she was very ineffective for the first two thirds of the play or so but then got better at the end. Apparently, at that point in her career, she hadn't yet developed her stage chops to the point of being consistently good for eight perfs a week over several months.

There is a TV movie adaptation of that production with Lange and Baldwin, but of course we can't really judge her stage performance from that.

Here's Frank Rich not paying Alec Baldwin any mind in that STREETCAR:

"The exciting news from the Ethel Barrymore Theater, where Gregory Mosher’s new Broadway staging of Streetcar arrived last night, is that Alec Baldwin has won. His Stanley is the first I’ve seen that doesn’t leave one longing for Mr. Brando, even as his performance inevitably overlaps his predecessor’s. Mr. Baldwin is simply fresh, dynamic and true to his part as written and lets the echoes fall where they may. While his Stanley does not in the end ignite this play’s explosive power, that limitation seems imposed not by his talent but by the production surrounding him and, especially, by his unequal partner in unhinged desire, Jessica Lange’s Blanche du Bois.

"Unsurprisingly, Mr. Baldwin imbues Stanley with an animalistic sexual energy that sends waves through the house every time he appears onstage. The audience responds with edgy delight from when he first removes his shirt and un-self-consciously uses it to wipe the New Orleans sweat from his armpits and torso. Yet the actor’s more important achievement is to bring a full palette to a man who is less than a hero but more than a brute. Cruel as Mr. Baldwin’s Stanley is, and must be, he comes across as an ingenuous, almost-innocent working stiff until Blanche provokes him to move in for the kill. His Stanley is funny in a post-adolescent, bowling buddy way as late as the rape scene, when he fondly emulates a cousin who was a 'human bottle-opener.' Even the famous interlude in which he screams for his wife, Stella (Amy Madigan), becomes pitiful as well as harrowing when Mr. Baldwin, a fallen, baffled beast, deposits himself in a sobbing heap at the bottom of a tenement’s towering stairs.

"Not the least of the actor’s achievements is to remind us why Williams’ play is so much more than the sum of its story of Stanley’s battle with the sister-in-law who invades his and Stella’s shabby French Quarter flat. 'I am 100 percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth,' Stanley rightly bellows at one point, after Blanche has taunted him one time too many for being a 'Polack.' He fills the play with the America of big-shouldered urban industrialism, of can-do pragmatism, of brute strength and vulgar humors: the swaggering America that believes, as Stanley paraphrases Huey Long, that 'every man is a king.' Mr. Baldwin makes it easy to see how Blanche and the ambivalent, self-destructive author for whom she is a surrogate could find this simian, menacing man mesmerizing even as he embodies the very forces on a 'dark march' to destroy them and their romantic old America of decaying plantations, kind strangers and 'tenderer feelings.'"

No, r68, the Coco story was supposedly true.

For all of Rich's drooling over Alec Baldwin, I've never been that impressed watching him onstage. Baldwin is a very limited actor in some ways. He has a good voice but he seems uncomfortable and awkward in his own body. (His wildly fluctuating weight doesn't help matters.)

He also has a history of bad relations with his castmates in several stage productions, including Lange, Jan Maxwell, and others.

R72, I offered Rich's review in response to the claim that all anyone noticed in that production was Lange. Your take is really interesting -- my only encounter with him onstage was ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE (to which you allude: didn't he punch a hole in a wall backstage while arguing with Jan Maxwell). In that he was exceptionally skilled at delivering what he'd been directed to do (or had decided to do) -- play it like Charles Nelson Reilly -- but there was no connection to anyone else onstage.

Then again, I think that his work on 30 ROCK is some of the best comic acting I've ever seen onscreen, and there he did seem to have a wonderful rapport with his scene partners. (Casting Elaine Stritch as his mother was brilliant on so many levels.) And his SNL hosting always shows how willing he is to "go there" comedically. In serious work he can be good but is generally less striking.

Do understudies count? If so, Nancy Hess. She covered for both Reinking and Neuwirth when the Chicago revival opened. You want someone really talented and special in both those roles but whenever Hess went on, which got to be often, she was just there, taking up space.

When DL's beloved Lenora Nemetz performed the same function in the original production, she was just fantastic as both Roxie and Velma.

[quote]Except she got rotten reviews from everyone...

That bears no relationship to reality, of course. She got many excellent notices.

I saw it twice, including opening night. Lange was incredible.

I like Alec Baldwin a lot, I think his turns on SNL are among the best there are, but he's a preppy frat boy, not a Stanley Kowalski.

R75 then why was Alec Baldwin the only one to get a Tony nomination for that production?

In fact, he was the production's sole nomination.

When Baldwin made his entrance in that Streetcar, he ripped off his T shirt, swabbed his pits with it and then started sniffing it. The audience usually gasped.

Christian Borle and Andrew Rannells in the Falsettos Revival. Absolutely awful casting.

Also in that Alec Baldwin Streetcar was the worst cast Mitch I've ever seen, the model handsome, muscular Timothy Carhart. It did nothing for his career either.

i saw phantom of the opera (i know) when i was 12 in 1992 and i don't remember the actors' names, but both the phantom and christine were very, very disappointing.

R81, Davis Gaines?

Love Bernadette Peters but she was all wrong for Gypsy.

^ I guess you didn't catch Linda Lavin in Gypsy.

Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun was also miscast.

Bernie was quite good by the end of her run in Gypsy. Unfortunately, by and large, that's not what the most of the public and critics saw. Check out her Tony performance.

R78 why did they gasp?

r82, no idea, I was just a kid on my first trip to NYC. Could probably turn up the name if I dug for it (the Playbill site will know I'm sure). I saw a great production of it a few years later in Denver.

As bad as Phantom was, it was made up for by Guys and Dolls, which had opened only a few months before, starring Nathan Lane, Peter Gallagher, and Faith Prince, I'll never forget it.

Andy Randells and Lens Dunham in “I Do! I Do!”

I agree about Peters and " Annie Get Your Gun." People forget she originated the role because Reba was so good.

Peters was terrific in the Sam Mendes Gypsy. It was when she got stuck in the tug of war between Mendes and Laurents that things fell apart. I don't blame her. It must have been a horrible situation.

Similarly, I don' think Faith Prince was miscast in Bells are Ringing. The blame lies entirely on Tina Landau undermining her at every turn.

I like Faith Prince but I feel she was miscast in Bells Are Ringing. The role was specifically tailored to Judy Holliday, who had a very subdued style of comedy.

I’ve seen Faith many times (one of her best performances was Falsettoland where she was brilliant with Holding to the Ground.) But she’s never been able to dial it back. She’s like Liza Minnelli in that there’s always an intense energy to her performance.

R92, Faith Prince did dial it back for the pre-Broadway, out of town production of BELLS ARE RINGING at the Kennedy Center, but then she schticked it up for the Broadway run. Of course, I have no way of knowing if that was her decision of Tina Landau's, or a combination of both.

Yes, Landau was the wrong director for that Bells revival. About a year before the revival, I saw a community theater production of the show and it was a lot of fun. Yes, it’s dated, but it has heart. The Broadway revival sucked all the fun out of the show.

I also think Marc Kudisch was miscast. He didn’t have the suave, bachelor playboy factor. Part of Ella’s character is wondering why such a “swinging” guy would be interested in a shlubby telephone operator. She totally misses that she has an engaging personality.

[quote]I also think Marc Kudisch was miscast. He didn’t have the suave, bachelor playboy factor.

I thought he had that factor of the role. And he was gorgeous then. Funny story: When I saw that production with a friend of mine, I turned to her afterwards and asked, "Would this show work at all if the actor playing Jeff didn't look like that?" And she said, "No."

R90, And yet, Bern won a Tony for it.

John Stamos in "Nine". "Bells Of St. Sebastian" was simply beyond his abilities.

Barry Williams in "City Of Angels". As the smooth gumshoe. Though I admit it was fun seeing a Brady live and in person.

I agree with Carol in Follies. The story I heard was that they wanted her for Hattie (Broadway Baby). She said she’d only play Carlotta and not wanting to lose her star power, the producers gave her Carlotta.

Not only is she physically wrong for the role, but she didn’t act it very well. I’m Still Here is not a comedy shtick song, yet there’s Carol trying to grab a laugh with “I’ve been through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoo-woo-ver.”

Faith Prince was directed by Landau to be Lucille Ball. The entire production was directed as a 1950s sitcom which did not serve the play at all. It didn't help that the 1950s hair and makeup that was chosen for Faith made her look 10 years older than Kudisch.

R98, Carol has said in interviews that she was more nervous that evening than any other in her career.

R94, Seriously? Marc Kudisch was at his sexiest around that time.

Carol was nervous because she knew she was miscast and in over her head. Carlotta is a sexpot role. In the show she’s living with a younger man and says she’ll probably drop him for another guy in six months. They should have had Cleo Laine do it. Or Rita Moreno. Or Jill O’Hara.

I think Faith Prince is ten years older than Marc Kudisch, but, yes, in Bells she looked like Ginny from Billing.

Another “I agree” about Carol in Follies. I think Mrs. Lovett would have been a good Sondheim part for her though.

R101, the role is not just about being sexy. There’s a suave factor that Kudisch didn’t have. He was too modern. The role needs a modern day Cary Grant.

Like moi.

The Bells revival should have cast Brian Stokes Mitchell.

I think Carol Burnett is awful in almost anything she does. The only time she surprises me is the rare good performance she gives (Friendly Fire, The Four Seasons).

Carol's Carlotta might have worked if she wore the dress with the curtain rods while singing it. Otherwise, nix.

Carol was also an underwhelming Joanne in a Long Beach (I think it was?) production of Company. I've always thought she might have made an interesting Rose in Gypsy. She had that bellowing belt like Merman and could handle the comedy. In the Follies world, she's a Hattie or Stella.

Linda Lavin was a strange Rose, but I'm not sure if she was miscast. Seeing it on paper, her casting made way more sense than Tyne Daly, but she made me feel very little with her performance. I know she landed a few of the laughs and had a moment or two where she was sort of scary, but as a whole, I can't remember much about it while I remember next to everything about Tyne and many others in the same role. It felt like watching someone's first dress rehearsal.

Carol is brilliant and has a strong voice. But she needs a director with a clear vision and a strong ability to control her when she is not in her niche. They are rare.

Youtube has clips of both Tyne and Linda as Rose. Tyne is vocally slightly underpowered but wonderful. Linda is sometimes great but sometimes very weird.

[quote] Linda is sometimes great but sometimes very weird.

Often in the same clip.

That was the issue with Lavin's performance. From line to line, it varied. She'd be going somewhere great for awhile and then come out with a really bizarre line reading that didn't work for the scene.

I found Michelle Williams painfully miscast in the last Cabaret revival. She lacked any humor or personality and played Sally like she was depressed in every scene. You expected her to rip out a razor blade and slit her wrists before going on to do "Mein Herr." Emma Stone was fantastic as her replacement and was one of the best Sallys I've ever seen. Sienna Miller made next to no impression.

[quote]I found Michelle Williams painfully miscast in the last Cabaret revival. She lacked any humor or personality and played Sally like she was depressed in every scene. You expected her to rip out a razor blade and slit her wrists before going on to do "Mein Herr."

Maybe her interpretation was like the one of Jane Horrocks

It could have been Natalie Portman.

R113, Horrocks was funny and charming in her own odd way. Williams wasn't. She was pretty lifeless as if she decided to play Sally on downers. A choice, for sure, but Sally's supposed to be full of life and energy. Low on talent, but high on energy.

Why were so many critics/theatregoers taken in by Michelle Williams as a replacement Sally? Just curious.

I saw Sienna Miller, who I expected to be fairly terrible. She astonished me by being just adequate.

There is a subtle difference in claiming an actor is miscast in a particular role and saying an actor simply doesn't have the talent to play a role.

For example: John C. Reilly is a very skilled and interesting actor but he is physically all wrong for Stanley Kowalski and no costuming, or makeup is going to change that. He was miscast.

OTOH: Christie Brinkley as Roxie Hart. Physically perfect for an aging vulnerable tart but no talent as an actress, singer or dancer to play the role.

Linda Lavin as Momma Rose: she has the talent and right looks for the part but was misguided by her director or by her own misconceptions to give a less than stellar performance.

John C. Reilly was a perfect Mitch, but cast as Stanley. I really didn't fancy seeing Reilly shirtless.

Did Lavin jazz it up the way each successive season of the theme song to "Alice", which was decent in season 1, successively went off the rails.

Patti LuPone in the revivals of Noises Off and Sweeney Todd. Bitch has spent a lot of time in the UK but can’t do a halfway decent British accent.

[quote]Peters was terrific in the Sam Mendes Gypsy.

Oh, dear. No.

I knew she would stink after her first line, which she didn't do well, or commandingly at all, (Sing OUT, Louise!). I called this production "Method Gypsy", as the actors wandered around waiting for their feelings to indicate their movement and blocking. It was a disaster, but people were afraid to say Bernadette just isn't a very good actress, or was totally miscast!

Denis O’Hare won a Tony for Sweet Charity.

Horrocks was so bizarre in CABARET that it actually worked for me. She fell back on some of her Bubble mannerisms but there was a slightly affected “mad”, manic quality that seemed right and the flashes when she let down Sally’s guard I found her rather endearing. That said, I hate that angry approach to the title song

[quote] Denis O’Hare won a Tony for Sweet Charity.

No, honey. Denis O'Hare won a Tony for Take Me Out. Michael Rupert won a Tony for Sweet Charity.

Shhhhhh.

[quote] Did Lavin jazz it up the way each successive season of the theme song to "Alice", which was decent in season 1, successively went off the rails.

Here are all of the openings. Notice that there is a different Tommy for the pilot, Alfred Lutter, who was replaced by Philip McKeon. Her interpretation of the song got bigger, but, actually, better, even though she really can't sing.

"Alfred Lutter, who played Tommy in the original movie, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, as well as in the pilot episode of the series, was thought to be too old for the long haul and was not chosen for the part."

Thanks, R117, for explaining for the benefit of those who don't get it. Michelle Williams in CABARET is another example. She was not in any way "miscast" as Sally Bowles in terms of type or even ability, but apparently her performance was unsatisfying (I didn't see her, but I heard and read many reactions) because of poor acting choices.

Yeah, I was just reading a comment on ATC that Darren Criss was "miscast" in American Buffalo.

But how is he "miscast" to play a young hustler street kid? He has the right looks, especially with his grown out unstyled hair, and the slyness. No, he's not miscast, he simply doesn't have the talent and skills to convince us he's that character.

That's a big difference, R127. Many actors are very talented and capable of excellent work, but have been put in the wrong part. Some are just not talented enough.

That may have been your experience, r121, but not mine. I saw it in Feb, after it had been running g a while, and she - and the production - were brilliant. I saw Lansbury and Daly, and Peters was their equal. Later I saw LuPone, who played it exactly as you would expect. My least favorite of the four.

I seen Hugh Jackman in Music Man. He was miscasted.

I love Denis O’Hair

Sheila McCracken in “No Tea for Me!”

r128, are you agreeing with me or not? I can't tell.

Mary Tyler Moore in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Shuler Hensley in The Music Man gave me the creeps.

Hugh Jackman in The Music Man gave me the creeps.

Sutton Foster in The Music Man gave me the creeps.

Jefferson Mays in The Music Man gave me the creeps.

I like Marie Mullen but she was way too old to be Winthrop's mother.

In Gypsy, Peters managed to hone in on how Rose doesn’t just bulldoze her kids, she lives vicariously through their performances. With her, it was entirely plausible that she could have been a star herself. Her clear-eyes, bitter realization that it was never going to happen for her broke my heart

She also gave very inventive lime readings, which Brantley referenced approvingly in his review. It wasn’t the totality of the performance, but it helped make very familiar lines seem spontaneous,

I remember years ago at Splash's "Musical Monday's" in NY, the show queens wood cheer when the VJ played Bernadette in Gypsy. Five years later, Patti got the cheers, and Bernadette would get booed. I saw both and saw nothing wrong with either performance, just very different. But I realized then that these show queens hypocrites. The same people went there for years so I know they cheered Bernadette at one moment and jeered when Patti started getting all the acclaim and won the Tony.

What was the original Mendes viewpoint that Laurents tore apart?

[quote]What was the original Mendes viewpoint that Laurents tore apart?

Mendes had the designer erect a false proscenium frame around the action so we could see Bernadette as Rose "in the wings" strutting and fretting and acting out the action onstage by the girls so we could see more of Rose while the girls performed.

This was superfluous nonsense as the libretto and entire show tell us everything we need to know about Rose. He truly "got a gimmick", and it laboriously made points that didn't need to be made.

The same sort of verité style permeated some numbers like "Some People" which was precisely staged for Tyne Daly and was sharp, fun, and told the story well. Mendes just had Peters wander around and "feel it out" leaving it unexciting, listless, unfocused and boring. Bernie also "unprettied" her speaking voice to sound more raspy and fishwife-like. It was a weird, phoney affectation. The fact is she is not a good actress really.

Whatever its flaws, the Mendes GYPSY was a thousand times more intelligent, fresh and interesting than the Laurents/LuPone version (prop lamb and all).

[quote] I like Marie Mullen but she was way too old to be Winthrop's mother.

Which supports the theory that Marian is actually Winthrop's mother and Old Man Madison was his father.

He left River City the Library Building but he left all the books to her!

In the Mendes production of Music Man, we see Marion breast feeding Winthrop.

Has the idea that Marian and Mrs. Paroo are actually not related, but in a dyke relationship a la Killing of Sister George ever been investigated? I can see a scene after Shipoopi where Eulalie comes over and starts orally servicing Marian’s nipples, while Mrs. Paroo starts mooing.

Brian Stokes Mitchell in Man Of La Mancha. He was terrible.

That ancient Welsh woman who married Kirk Douglas' boy in A Little Night Music. What was her name? Katrina Zebulon-Johns?

Stokes was also dreadful in the Encores' KISMET where he displayed absolutely no sense of humor.

Linda played Gypsy with an Irish brogue, which made no sense.

I would have loved to have seen Bonnie Franklin take a crack at it. Jokes aside, I think she could have totally nailed the role.

We never really got a chance to see what Mendes' full vision of Gypsy would have been. I'd heard that he'd wanted to make the vaudeville scenes sleazier like his Cabaret with naked women and stand hands groping them backstage. It may very well have been awful, but potentially more interesting than what we got. It's too bad he had Laurents breathing down his neck the whole time. With Laurents finally gone, the next Broadway production will be the first one without him directing it or trying to from the background. I wonder if they'll let loose and do something different with it.

Bonnie also played Martha in a regional theatre production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

She must have been the most hateful, bitchiest Martha out of all of them.

Brian Stokes Mitchell was a good Emile in the concert version of South Pacific, if not for the fact that South Pacific makes zero sense if Nellie is racist enough to not be able to accept that Emile has half-Polynesian kids but has no qualms with him being Black.

R151, Bonnie Franklin?

Bonnie was scheduled to play Rose at Bucks County Playhouse ages ago but backed out and Joyce deWitt replaced her.

Joyce only did two shows before she was replaced by Carol Wayne.

R151, let's remember that Martha has also been played by Marlo Thomas.

R156, With two sets of eyelashes and a flip hairdo?

R156, Marlo is shown rehearsing for Virginia Woolf @ 1:28.

If Joan Rivers could have sang she would have been the best Rose since Judy Garland, and I have no doubt she would have sold Melissa To the Gypsies in the second act to make her a star.

Sell Melissa to the Gypsies? Joan couldn't give her away. And in any case, haven't they suffered enough?

Brian Stokes Mitchell may have been bad in Man of La Mancha but Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was worse

[quote] I would have loved to have seen Bonnie Franklin take a crack at it. Jokes aside, I think she could have totally nailed the role.

Yeah, to the cross.

[quote]We never really got a chance to see what Mendes' full vision of Gypsy would have been. I'd heard that he'd wanted to make the vaudeville scenes sleazier like his Cabaret with naked women and stand hands groping them backstage.

Ah, just like he took a sledgehammer to CABARET and had every bit of the subtext played on the top. Please don't ever let him near another classic American musical.

Has Suzanne Somers ever played Martha in Virgina Woolf? I think she'd be revelatory.

I thought that Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was the weakest part of " Man of LaMancha," also.

Suzanne Somers should have played all the roles just for gay men to watch at parties.

Suzanne Somers in WHO’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Suzanne Somers in Gypsy

Suzanne Somers in Death of a Salesman

Weirdly I’m surprised she was never offered Roxie in Chicago.

Maybe Somers was offered Roxie but she declined because she didn't want to work that hard, and/or she had enough sense of reality to know she doesn't have the talent for it regardless of how hard she might have worked.

Did anyone see her in THE BLONDE IN THE THUNDERBIRD?

I didn't get into theater/Broadway until the late 2000s, so I just missed out.

I did, R168. It was one of those rare shows that you can't believe are actually happening even while you're watching them.

Maybe Suzie was passed over for Roxie because she couldn’t cut it.

Suzanne Somers IS Medea!

Suzanne seems like a given for Roxie. I'm shocked she never did it.

There was an interview with Joan Rivers a few years before she died when she was talking Broadway and how much she loved and she mentioned that Hal Prince once told her that, if she could sing, she would have been a perfect Rose in Gypsy. He was right. She'd have been terrific.

Huge Jackman in Misic Man

Huge Jackman would be better in the sequel - where Marian, Harold and Winthrop relocate from Iowa to Gary, Indiana - Hoosier Daddy

[quote]and about 15-20 years younger. The whole point of the character is that, like Joe Hardy, she sells her soul to the devil for youth and beauty.

R44 Gwen Verdon was 33 in 1958 when the movie of Damn Yankees was released, so I don't think we really needed her to be between 13 and 18 years old.

Yeah, but Gwen looked 53.

R176 Well, it didn't help that she looked older than Tab Hunter, because she was.

We just have a few Lina Lamont triple threats here - can't sing, can't dance, can't act -- who are jealous of Gwen it seems.

Some odd choices here... I loved Carol Burnett in Company and Follies. I thought Jane Horrocks was brilliant in Cabaret. My votes for most miscast would be Patti LuPone in Sunset Blvd -she was too young for the role- and (I kid you not) Leonard Nimoy as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.

[Quote] Horrocks was so bizarre in CABARET that it actually worked for me. She fell back on some of her Bubble mannerisms but there was a slightly affected “mad”, manic quality that seemed right and the flashes when she let down Sally’s guard I found her rather endearing. That said, I hate that angry approach to the title song

I think her performance would be better regarded if she hadn't performed the title song like that. She's the only Sally I've seen who was able to get laughs with "taciturn Malaysian."

Fuck young, Patti LuPone has nothing of the temptress nor the Great Lady about her.

Carol's Carlotta should have gone to Dolores.

Ben Whishaw as John Proctor in The Crucible.

Dolores did Carlotta in London. She stopped the show cold!

Why would Katharine Hepburn need to have a French accent in Coco? She wasn't playing a French person who is speaking English. She was playing a French person who is speaking French. That's assumed, even though the play is played in English. So no accents are required.

I saw Eartha Kitt as Carlotta in London, she was Gray’s replacement. She was mesmerizing although miscast as Carlotta.

[quote]Patti LuPone in Sunset Blvd -she was too young for the role

LuPone was too old. Everyone thinks of Norma Desmond as being old, but she's really only about 45. She started her career as a teenager.

r187

isn't she 50?

[quote]I loved Carol Burnett in Company and Follies.

I've posted it before and I'll post it again

The concert version of Company offered Carol Burnett the role of Hattie (Broadway Baby). She said she'd only do it if she could play Carlotta and since the producers wanted her star wattage they agreed.

Carlotta is a sexpot. She has a line about how she's living with a much younger man and in six months she may get bored with him and find another, younger man.

Burnett couldn't resist doing her shtick in "I'm Still Here." If you listen to the recording, she sings, "I've been through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoo-woo-ver..."

Sorry, I meant Follies, not Company.

[quote] isn't she 50?

Was 50 in the script?

I'm sort of spitballing this answer, so if someone knows different please correct me.

I think she mentions to Cecil De Mille that they were dancing on a table when Lindbergh landed? That was 1927. She was supposed to start her career as a teenage girl, but let's assume she was 21 in 1927. That would have put her being born in 1906. The film debuted in 1950, so that would make Norma 44.

r191

Here's a quote from the movie: Joe Gillis:

There's nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you're trying to be twenty-five.

and in the musical there is a lyric bringing up being 50 but I do think you are correct, they never actually specify Norma's age

Didn't Karen Morrow also do that Hoover schtick?

I was born in 1899, 50 when I created the role in the iconic film.

End of story.

What age was Mae West?

My iconic photo at the destruction of The Roxy also inspired FOLLIES, bitches!

What age was Mae West when she was how old, R195? When she died? When she stopped seeing herself as a sexpot? When she stopped masturbating because her tits sagged so low that they rubbed her clit on their own?

[quote] LuPone was too old. Everyone thinks of Norma Desmond as being old, but she's really only about 45. She started her career as a teenager.

Sweetie, LuPone WAS 45 when she played Norma.

Melina Mercury in Oklahoma

[quote]Sweetie, LuPone WAS 45 when she played Norma.

LuPone was miscast. That face was not the face of a silent movie starlet.

With one look, I will scare the kids

With one look, this show is on the skids.

LuPone wasn't miscast in Sunset due to her age, but more in her persona. She didn't have the glamour or the right type of personality for it. She did sing it beautifully. Betty Buckley had a wonderful fragility and glamour that worked well for the role and she was one of my favorite Normas.

It wasn't Broadway, but Betty Buckley in Gypsy at Papermill was horrifically miscast, missing every single laugh in the show. She did at least sing the role as fantastically as you'd expect, but I remember feeling next to nothing after the show was over. Not really what you want to feel after seeing that show. At the time, it seemed like she was still playing Norma and her Rose was a very cold, but classy woman. None of the brassy vulgarity, earthiness, and humor that usually goes along with the role.

r201, do you think that Buckley was utterly incapable of playing a warmer Rose or was she actually just misguided in her intentions or by her director? I just quibble with the term "miscast" in this instance. She certainly was capable of playing great warmth in 1776, Promises, Promises and even as Grizabella and on that old TV series with all the step-kids.

Allow me to register a minority opinion about that Paper Mill GYPSY. When I saw it, I wasn't nearly as concerned with Buckley's humorlessness, because I found her quite overwhelming -- in a good way!

My strongest memory is how she did "Everything's Coming Up Roses." In the scene before it, she let a long pause elapse before beginning the speech "I'm used to people walking out." She built steadily, meaningfully, all the way from an initial "wounded bird" quality to a steely resolve ("And I can make you now!") that then exploded into the song.

It seems to be a DL article of faith that Buckley was terrible in GYPSY. All I can say is that she wasn't terrible the night that I saw her. (And John Simon, of all people, agreed with me, if I recall his review correctly.)

The only time Buckley got laughs in the Papermill Gypsy was when Rose would say or do something so brazen and bonkers that the audience would laugh at her.

Erica Jane as Julie Jordan in the Short Hills dinner theatre production of Carousal

Too many people have done Gypsy. There should be no further roductions of Gypsy for10 years. Do other plays.

Norma Desmond in the movie is 50. I don't know about the show.

*productions

Sophie Okonedo as Elizabeth Proctor in the bizarre Ivo Van Hove revival of The Crucible.

Firstly her natural type is "warm loving earth mother", which is 100% opposite how how the SCRIPT DESCRIBES Elizabeth! And the other thing is...she's BLACK! One of the main themes of the whole play surrounds the theme of "the other" as exemplified by the only black character, the slave woman Tituba! How the fuck does it even make sense to have a freaking mixed-race couple as Elizabeth and John Proctor? Also, she was terrible in the role. It was as if she'd never read the play.

Gypsy should not be seen on stage again until everyone alive is dead as in 100 years or so. Like Jackie's pink Dallas day of death Chez Ninon Chanel approved suit.

I was just saying to a theatre friend recently that any and all versions of GYPSY and WEST SIDE STORY should be kept under lock and key for at least another decade. Enough already. Maybe after 15-20 years those projects will feel fresh again.

But not now.

[quote]Gwen Verdon was 33 in 1958 when the movie of Damn Yankees was released, so I don't think we really needed her to be between 13 and 18 years old.

Sweetie, Gwen Verdon lied about her age throughout her career, although I'm not sure exactly when that started. If you believe she was 33 when the movie of DAMN YANKEES was released, I have some real estate in Antarctica to sell you.

[quote]LuPone wasn't miscast in Sunset due to her age, but more in her persona. She didn't have the glamour or the right type of personality for it. She did sing it beautifully.

I agree with all of that except what you wrote about her singing. Although of course her voice itself is light years better than Close's, Patti sang the role with all of that scooping and yodeling and odd pronunciation she's famous for, and that kind of singing just doesn't fit the style of the music in that show.

[quote] yodeling

Love it.

[quote]Sweetie, Gwen Verdon lied about her age throughout her career, although I'm not sure exactly when that started. If you believe she was 33 when the movie of DAMN YANKEES was released, I have some real estate in Antarctica to sell you.

Wikipedia says she was born Jan. 13, 1925. I don't "believe" it due to some naivete on my part, only because I read it. What is her real age if not that?

June Allyson faked her age for many years but Wikipedia has her correct birth date (for ex).

[quote]Wikipedia says she was born Jan. 13, 1925. I don't "believe" it due to some naivete on my part, only because I read it. What is her real age if not that?

I don't know her real age, but it seems obvious to me that this can't be true, because the face of the woman in the DAMN YANKEES movie does not remotely look like she's 32 or 33, even accounting for the fact that people of that age looked older back then.

And anyway, of course, it doesn't really matter how old Gwen actually was at the time of the filming, but rather, how old she appeared to be. I'd say she looked to be around 40, which is why I wrote that someone who was (or looked) about 20 years younger should have been cast in the movie.

Gwen Verdon lifts her leg.

Is this really a young Gwen? She looks quite like Molly Pope here.

A 1925 birthdate would have had Gwen in Hollywood in 1952 at age 28, assisting choreographer Jack Cole on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Then a year later, she made her sensational debut on Broadway in Can-Can at age 29. She would have opened in Sweet Charity in 1966 at age 41 and in Chicago in 1975 at age 50.

Seems reasonable to me.

She' d be 27 assisting Cole and 28 in 'Can-Can" though.

Also, "Can-Can" wasn't her Broadway debut, but her appearance in it was indeed sensational.

Gwen smoked from a young age. Smoking is terrible for the skin.

R221, maybe it was just that. Because she looked and sounded a lot older than her supposed age in the DAMN YANKEES movie, and also in SWEET CHARITY and CHICAGO.

Gwen was a meeskite at any age.

Were there any leading ladies of the Golden Age of Broadway with great looks?

Ethel Merman

Mary Martin

Gertrude Lawrence

Shirley Booth

Chita Rivera

Vivian Blaine

Nanette Fabray

Dolores Gray

Carol Burnett

Babs

Carol Channing

Elaine Stritch

Maybe....Carol Lawrence?

Patricia Morison was a beauty. Anne Jeffreys too.

Joan Diener could take a great glamour pic in her youth. She got very horsey, presumably once her ED kicked in full force.

Julie Wilson was attractive too.

Janis Paige was very pretty. And she'll be 100 on Sept. 16th.

Julie Andrews, also very pretty

Barbara Cook, quite pretty during her Broadway career.

Vivian Blaine was quite attractive -- she was the 2nd stringer in Technicolor specialist 20th Century Fox studio after Betty Grable.

Ethel did both Grable and Hutton wrong when they appeared with her on stage yet it didn't matter because their star power carried them through to Hollywood stardom in spite of it. Ethel was not the most generous of performers. Mary did not seem to be either.

Judy Holliday photographed well too.

I loved Barbara Cook--and apparently she could look quite lovely onstage when she was young and slim.

But she never photographed very well, which limited her opportunities in film and TV. Something about her teeth (ie, an overbite), her smile, her nose being a bit broad, etc.

Many of us have heard the story that before MARY POPPINS was a hit, one of the reasons for not casting Julie Andrews in MY FAIR LADY was the studios concern that she was not pretty/photogenic enough. The standards are quite different in film and TV.

Ethel only got "There's No Business Like Show Business" because Betty Grable turned it down.

Bangs did a lot for Julie Andrews' appearance. Her nose also appeared more bulbous pre movie stardom.

R226, I knew Joan Diener had the world's biggest balls, but I didn't know she had erectile dysfunction.

I was NOT ready to play the mother of Mitzi Gaynor, Johnny Ray and Donald fucking O'Connor, r235!

Judy's pretty gorgeous in "Born Yesterday", and hilariously funny, too.

Judy was fat and matronly. And severely overrated.

FUCK you, R240. She was beautiful and talented, and an absolute joy to watch.

Monique Phlebottom in “Dandy Boy!”

Judy Holliday= Waste of an Oscar

Elizabeth Allen was lovely.

Why didn't lovely Patricia Morison have a follow up hit to Kiss Me Kate, do you suppose?

Patricia Morison was offered Out of This World, but wisely opted to stay with Kate. R&H wanted her to go into King & I when Gertie Lawrence died, but they had to wait out the London run of Kate. Pat finally went into K&I, closed the NY run, and did the national tour(opposite Yul Brynner).

And then she lived for 70 more years. What did Pat do after The King and I, r246?

A most lovely Mrs. Anna...

I found her rather...stiff... r244.

Might Morison's sexuality have affected her opportunities?

I once said Andrews had a nose job and of course somebody here attacked me for saying such an obscene lie. You can see her original nose quite clearly in Cinderella. She might have had it done before Camelot. It's why she got Poppins. Warner must have seen her originally in Lady and knew with that blob she wouldn't make it in movies along with no box office history though it seems everyone with a TV at least in the US probably knew who she was(Hepburn had already had her rhinoplasty years before) and immediately discounted her. Her Dr. did a great job, she did Camelot looking beyond lovely in those Adrian get-ups, Disney went to see it and the rest is show biz history. Gertie also had a blob(Noel's word to her in an exasperated moment) which she never had fixed and it didn't help her in movies.

DL fave Julie Benko resembles Gertie.

Lawrence wielded a mean strap, you can just tell.

I wonder if Julie Benko knows she’s achieved DL Fave status?

Now that we have gone over who looked lovely, who was miscast?

Julie was a bit awkward looking when she was younger; she had done a screen test for Joseph Pasternak, who had helped make Deanna Durbin a huge star at Universal, and word was (even Andrews admits it) that the screen test was not a success. There were long memories by some folks when years later she was a star on stage and then up for "The Sound of Music"; Robert Wise had heard that she was deemed unphotogenic and Walt Disney provided him looks at rushes from "Mary Poppins" to prove she looked quite fine on camera by then.

In the Julie Andrews CINDERELLA as viewed on DVD, I would say she looks lovely in some shots and NOT pretty at all in many others. I'm not sure how much of that is due to makeup and hair, how much to any plastic surgery that may have been done later, and how much due to the fact that the kinescope makes almost everyone look bad (except Edie Adams). But anyway, I've always been convinced that's the main reason why Jack Warner nixed her for the MFL movie.

Julie Benko is NOT a DL fave, and I'm the dame to prove it!

Beanie Baby! Married Lady!

Not Broadway but in the West End: Daniel Craig in the Christopher Walken role in Hurlyburly. Didn't really register.

Have it on good authority Andrew’s did have a nose job

I can beat that, r260. I saw Rupert Graves in that role (or was it the Bill Hurt role?) in London in the late 1990s. Either way, he was seriously miscast; that role was way beyond his abilities. I can remember seeing Ian McKellan, who was heading to the stage door with a friend, muttering: "Whatever will I say to the dear boy??"

Addenda! Actually, just googled the production only to discover that Daniel Craig was in it, too. But as I didn't know who he was back then, I'd forgotten that. In any case, Rupert played Eddie (Bill Hurt) and Daniel played Mickey (Chris Walken).

There is a brand new video on youtube of Andrews discussing her career. She's allowing herself to age and seems to have stopped the plastic surgery.

Start your own fucking Julie Andrews thread and stop hijacking this one.

Well I love Julie so you'll just have to enjoy her like everyone else and if you're incapable of it you can fuck go yourself with an umbrella. One of those that Poppins open after you've shoved it up your ass.

NO, actually you can fuck yourself, unless you can cite the show where Julie was miscast. Otherwise, start a Julie thread. I'm sure you'll have fun answering yourself.

Uh like fucking Star! Ok not Broadway but everybody agrees she was miscast and it sank her movie career.

She and Christopher Plummer were miscast in On Golden Pond, ok it was TV but it was technically the Broadway play they were doing. Very bad.

Raquelle Welch in Woman of the Year

No, R269. NOT miscast in terms of type, just untalented. I guess you haven't learned the difference, even though it has been pointed out several times in this thread. And P.S., it's Raquel.

Deborah Gibson in FUNNY GIRL, CABARET and CHICAGO (regionally). Andrea McArdle as Hannigan (funny she ain’t). Peters in AGYG and FOLLIES.

AGYG?

r272

Annie get your gun

To R272: Ahem, Girl, You even Gay?

AGYG = Annie Grab Your Groin. They were trying to lure away the Oh! Calcutta! audience.

R269 = Lauren Bacall

R270 She was miscast because the role requires an actress with talent.

Raquel has a good voice and has stage presence but she’s a terrible actress and her two broadway outings weren’t a good fit.

VICTOR/VICTORIA was ridiculous casting for Raquel, but the only reason she was bad in WOMAN OF THE YEAR was because she can't act -- at least, not on stage. As far as type, I don't think she was a bad fit for the part at all.

Well, if you think of Woman of the Year as a vehicle for Katharine Hepburn, for whom it was originally created, Raquel is a stretttttccccch. An intellectual proto-feminist writer, who's put off by macho behavior. Even Bacall was iffy casting, IMHO. I think the musical also failed because it should be the story of two people warring and then coming together, equal lead roles, not a star vehicle for the woman.

Totie Fields as Cassie in ACL

So if let's say, Rob Lowe were cast as Ferris Bueller, instead of Matthew Broderick, and happened not to be very good, he wouldn't be miscast, because he's "the right type"? To me, miscast means anybody who isn't well cast and isn't good in a role. They were not cast well. Mis-cast.

But they have to be a decent performer in the first place. Christie Brinkley or Wendy Williams in CHICAGO is stunt casting, not miscasting.

Like I said, R262, he didn't really register.

R282, by that "definition" there's no difference between "miscast" and "not good in the part."

For me the word "miscast" indicates a square-peg, round-hole situation. Imagine 1975 Liza Minnelli going into the original run of CHICAGO . . . but as Mama Morton. She could have sung it, she would have scored some laughs, etc., but she would have been miscast. Or to take a real-life example, I'd submit Patti LuPone in PAL JOEY. Vera Simpson should exude class and dignity, while LuPone never totally casts off that "Long Island manicurist" quality. (Also, as a friend wrote at the time, "Vera Simpson should look good in clothes.")

By contrast, consider DL fave Linda Lavin as Tyne Daly's replacement in GYPSY. Lavin would seem perfectly good casting -- scrappy, funny, intense, etc. -- but pretty much everyone seems to agree that it didn't work AT ALL. (The few clips I've seen/heard bear that out, alas.) Miscast? Not by my definition -- she had everything needed to be a solid Rose at worst. But she was either misdirected or just took the wrong tack on the part.

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a difference between a miscasting and a missed opportunity. Patti LuPone in PAL JOEY? Miscast. Linda Lavin in GYPSY? Missed opportunity.

Your mileage may vary.

Liza as a lesbian? Not miscast.

Was Bernadette technically miscast in Follies? She looked the part as described by the script and, contrary to popular belief, I thought she handled the score well. God knows there have been many who have handled it worse.

Blythe Dinner seemed like she'd be a slam dunk as Phyllis in the previous revival, but she disappointed.

Sally should never look like she's had a lot of nip n tuck work.

R285 Yeah, well - it does seem to contain a lot of gray areas that are up to personal interpretation. Has there ever been anyone miscast as to type, who is great in a part? No, because they also aren't good in the part. Sometimes it means the same thing.

Michelle Pfeiffer is good in Frankie & Johnny. To some, she was miscast because she's too good looking, and thus automatically has more prospects that the "middle aged losers" at the centre of the story.

Rob Lowe would have been too pretty/handsome for Ferris, who required more of an everyday schmo or boy next door, if you will Rob would have indeed been miscast.

Young Matthew Broderick was not everyday schmo...

Bernadette Peters in "Annie, Get Your Gun"

Bernadette Peters in "Gypsy"

Bernadette Peters in "Stalag 17"

Bernadette Peters in "The Rose Tattoo"

Broderick definitely looks more like your average high schooler, though. How many guys who looked like Rob Lowe did you have in your school?

[quote] Michelle Pfeiffer is good in Frankie & Johnny. To some, she was miscast because she's too good looking, and thus automatically has more prospects that the "middle aged losers" at the centre of the story.

You can say she and Pacino were miscast if you look at it as the play. The film was definitely reconfigured to push forward the broken interiors of these characters rather than the not so good looking exteriors. The point of the film was that these people were so damaged by incidents in their pasts that they fell into the cracks of society. The play was more about- I don't feel attractive (though I, too, have inner damage, but mostly caused by my shitty exterior self image), so I'm a loser.

The film version worked 100% with the casting it had. But it was not the play.

Rob Lowe would have been miscast as Ferris because he was too good looking. Ferris used his wit, charm and ingenuity to skate by. Rob would only need to show up, and everyone would do his bidding. He would not need to rely on anything else. Ferris was revered because everyone could relate to him, look up to him, be his best friend, think they actually COULD be his best friend. He was relatable and on your level while also being better than you just a smidge. Lowe was (back then) a Greek statue of a beauty and much too intimidating looking. He would not have been able to function on any other level, even if he was a good actor.

R290, Pfeiffer was grotesquely miscast in Frankie & Johnny. The entire point of the play is that these two “plain looking” people can find love together. So sure, cast the most beautiful looking woman in films to play the female lead. Garry Marshall was an idiot.

You missed the point of the film, R297.

It took a long time for someone to mention Ben Whishaw as John Proctor in The Crucible. He and Sophie Okonedo were both grossly miscast in that, especially Whishaw.

Ivo van Hove loves to miscast: See also Russell Tovey in A View from the Bridge.

Bill Irwin in Bye, Bye Birdie. Fine actor hopelessly at sea.

Parkey Posey in Taller Than A Dwarf. And Jerry Adler in the same play. Matthew Broderick almost as bad. All can be good. All were atrocious.

Elaine Stritch was terrible in A Little Night Music.

Patti LuPone made a valiant effort in Sunset Boulevard but wasn't quite believable as a movie star.

Hugh Jackman, surprisingly, isn't right for The Music Man. Sutton Foster surprisingly is. She walks away with the show. Jefferson Mays and Shuler Hensley feel like bizarre inclusions in that show. And they are fantastically talented.

Aaron Tveit in Moulin Rouge, undeserved Tony notwithstanding. Didn't buy him for a second.

Oscar winners are often miscast thinking that their film bona fides automatically make them Broadway ready. See: Forest Whitaker in Hughie. Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain. Jessica Chastain in The Heiress.

And sometimes previously great stage actors return to the stage and have lost the muscles needed: Morgan Freeman in The Country Girl. Denzel Washington in The Iceman Cometh.

Patti Lupone was Vera in ENCORES production of PAL JOEY, for a total of 6 performances. I know, because I saw it twice, counting the invited dress rehearsal. She was terrific: funny, smart, savvy, sly. Did her Vera "exude class and dignity?" Not really. Not sure that Vivienne Segal did, either, when she originated the role. Or when she reprised it in 1952.

Was Patti miscast? Not nearly as much as a bland Peter Gallagher as Joey. Or Daisy Prince, beyond dreadful as Linda. Not by a mile.

Beanie!!

Bernadette Peters in Gypsy. Granted I saw her early in the run but I can’t get imagine her kewpie-doll Mama ever worked

[Quote] Aaron Tveit in Moulin Rouge, undeserved Tony notwithstanding. Didn't buy him for a second.

I remember when he got the nomination—and I thought who was he again? I had totally forgotten he was even in the show

No I didn’t, R298.

You obviously did. And I bet you missed the point of the goddamn play, too.

Frankie & Johnny really should have been given to Diane Keaton and Ray Liotta.

Lens Dunham as Julie Jordan in Carousel

No, Bernie couldn't handle Rose at all. She was terrible. An embarrassment. /sarcasm

[quote]So if let's say, Rob Lowe were cast as Ferris Bueller, instead of Matthew Broderick, and happened not to be very good, he wouldn't be miscast, because he's "the right type"? To me, miscast means anybody who isn't well cast and isn't good in a role. They were not cast well. Mis-cast.

So, clearly, your definition of "miscast" is quite different from the definition that many other people have in mind, myself included. And that's fine, as long as you don't keep insisting your definition is the only correct one.

Susan Lucci in Annie Get Your Gun.

A late middle-aged Don Ameche as a world-famous pianist two high school girls would have a crush on in "Henry, Sweet Henry"

Julia Roberts was better in the latter part of THREE DAYS OF RAIN than the first section, but she's a movie star, not a character actor.

Chastain was absolutely embarrassing in THE HEIRESS and she got worse as the play went on. And David Strathairn, who I usually like a lot, was all wrong as Dr. Sloper. I don't know if he was truly miscast (he's played stern characters before) - more like misdirected or made the wrong choices in an attempt to do the part differently. Chastain was simply inept.

[quote] And sometimes previously great stage actors return to the stage and have lost the muscles needed: Morgan Freeman in The Country Girl. Denzel Washington in The Iceman Cometh.

So, they came CRRRRRRRaw-lin' back to Broadway!

But Broadway doesn't care for INCEST... or ADULTERY!

[quote]Was Patti miscast? Not nearly as much as a bland Peter Gallagher as Joey. Or Daisy Prince, beyond dreadful as Linda. Not by a mile.

You sound like you really suffered.

[quote]Chastain was absolutely embarrassing in THE HEIRESS and she got worse as the play went on. And David Strathairn, who I usually like a lot, was all wrong as Dr. Sloper. I don't know if he was truly miscast (he's played stern characters before) - more like misdirected or made the wrong choices in an attempt to do the part differently. Chastain was simply inept.

Dan Stevens' performance was also quite poor, but I don't think he or Chastain or Strathairn were miscast. I blame all of that production's problems on its director, one of the biggest frauds ever to be allowed to direct SEVERAL Broadway shows.

David Strathairn was pretty awful (or misdirected) opposite Helen Mirren, who was terrific and Ian McKellen (very good) in the "Dance of Death" on Broadway years ago. Strathairn was like in a different play, certainly a very different style which didn't work.

R316, you're right, of course, about Morgan Freeman. But Denzel Washington's a poor example -- whatever you thought of him in the 2018 ICEMAN, atrophy of stage muscles can't be the reason: he'd done RAISIN IN THE SUN in 2014 (though too old for it, he was terrific, bursting with energy, charm and presence), and he'd won a Tony for FENCES in 2010.

R314, Jessica Chastain's movements were robotic and she spoke in a monotone.

Lens Dunham and Pete Davidson in Frankie and Johnny. I can smell it already.

[quote] RAISIN IN THE SUN in 2014 (though too old for it, he was terrific, bursting with energy, charm and presence), and he'd won a Tony for FENCES in 2010.

Oh, you're a Denzel fan. That explains everything.

Al Pacino is not plain. He has never been plain.

Didn't Ian McKellan suggest to Strathairn that he watch Strathairn's own understudy in order to improve in the part?

It was pure hubris that Chastain did a revival of The Heiress - a role that has BELONGED to Cherry Jones since '90s. If she couldn't better Jones, why bother?

She got worse during the run because she kept missing performances to Oscar campaign for Zero Dark Thirty; they eventually closed a week early to accommodate her and then she lost the Oscar.

Chastain has talent but it doesn't outweigh her ambition. Can't believe she won for that "little girl lost" performance of the corrupt swine, Tammy Faye.

That's like criticising Lapone for playing a fascist.

[quote]It was pure hubris that Chastain did a revival of The Heiress - a role that has BELONGED to Cherry Jones since '90s. If she couldn't better Jones, why bother?

Of course, I don't know for sure, but I suspect she could have given a far better performance with a better director. Or, to be more accurate, with a real director rather than a fraud.

Thanks for reminding me about how great Cherry Jones was in the Heiress. I had just moved to NYC when I saw that-one of the greatest performances I have ever witnessed.

R325, Better than the performance she gave in Doubt?

R326, yes. In fact, I wasn’t as bowled over by her Doubt performance as everyone else was

Much better than the performance she gave in Doubt. I remember seeing the very first preview of Doubt at Manhattan Theatre Club and sitting in the back row, thinking- What a POS this play is. Poor Cherry. Little did I know.

I worked with her on The Heiress and she was so good, so revelatory, really. She did it for almost a full year, never missed a performance, and I cannot tell you how many times I would go out into the house to watch her scene where she waits for Morris to come, only to realize that she's been stood up. A year, and it never became tiresome. It was as if Cherry kept finding new depths you couldn't possibly believe could be plumbed playing the role for that long.

I remember when she decided she was leaving, Lincoln Center decided they were going to keep the play going and cast Cynthia Nixon, who was hot off a Tony nomination for Indiscretions. But advance ticket sales with her in the lead were dire so they chose to close the show on Dec 31 of that year.

The other performance of Cherry's that I found just magical was in Pride's Crossing, where she played swimmer Mabel Tidings Bigelow, the first woman to swim the English Channel. She looks back at her life at age 90 in the play, and Cherry played her from ages 18-90, no makeup, just performance. And she was unbelievable. I'm sorry that didn't move to Broadway. She would have easily scored a Tony nomination for it.

For real New York theatergoers, Cherry was an actress who, for a good decade and a half, if you heard she was in a show, you went to it, because you knew you were gonna see something special, no matter the production.

I love Cherry but I'd say she was very miscast as Amanda Wingfield in that execrable revival of The Glass Menagerie. Or was she just misdirected?

R329, both. Prepare to get flamed because there are a lot of staunch supporters of the production. The direction was misguided all around, and ultimately has to be held primarily responsible. After all, the director cast Cherry Jones.

I thought that production was wonderful, except for the always terrible Celia Keenan-Bolger climbing out of the sofa. Jones was terrific, as were the two men.

I'm not going to "flame" anyone, but I'm certainly not alone in thinking that the production of THE GLASS MENAGERIE that starred Cherry Jones under John Tiffany's direction was wonderful overall, and that Cherry was certainly not "miscast." Even if you didn't like her performance, I can't imagine in what way anyone could argue that she was "miscast." (I've recently decided that the meaning of that word is misunderstood by a great many people.)

For anyone who saw both that production and the Sam Gold debacle with Sally Field, all you had to do was sense the audience reaction during the performance of each one to know which production was working beautifully and which one was a bizarre misfire.

R331, the "always terrible" Celia Keenan-Bolger got a Tony nomination for her performance in THE GLASS MENAGERIE, and went on to win a Tony for her performance in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, so there are obviously many people who don't share your nasty opinion.

What's so nasty about "always terrible"?

I thought Cherry was miscast as Amanda because she always seems to naturally bring a forthrightness and resourcefulness to her characterizations. Something of a Girl Scout leader for want of a better description. She didn't convince me of Amanda's vulnerability and desperation.

I didn't thinks she was convincing in Doubt either. As that nun, she wasn't believable as as such a close-minded and stupid person.

Dawn Upshaw in Evita.

The problem wasn’t Cherry Jones in Glass Menagerie; is that the play is dated and stupid, and producers need to stop reviving it so often.

[quote] I thought Cherry was miscast as Amanda because she always seems to naturally bring a forthrightness and resourcefulness to her characterizations. Something of a Girl Scout leader for want of a better description. She didn't convince me of Amanda's vulnerability and desperation.

I loved Cherry's interpretation of Amanda. I get so tired of seeing Amanda directed to be the main character of the play. It's not Amanda's story. It's Laura's story, really. Frank Galati and Julie Harris were the first time I ever saw the play directed that way, and Cherry was the next.

I felt Cherry played Amanda as though she knew she was not going to be around much longer and she had to make sure Laura was provided for and taken care of. There absolutely was desperation there, but not for herself. She was determined to leave things settled. I thought it was a great interpretation.

[quote]I thought Cherry was miscast as Amanda because she always seems to naturally bring a forthrightness and resourcefulness to her characterizations. Something of a Girl Scout leader for want of a better description.

On, really? Did you feel that Cherry came across as "forthright" and "resourceful" as Catherine Sloper in THE HEIRESS? Because I felt that she appropriately came across as pretty much the exact opposite. So I guess you were just making an incorrect, ridiculously broad generalization based on how Cherry came across in a few roles she has played during her long career.

Oh, and P.S., many would describe the character of Amanda in THE GLASS MENAGERIE as very forthright and also very resourceful when she needs to be, so I really don't know what you're talking about.

[quote]So, clearly, your definition of "miscast" is quite different from the definition that many other people have in mind, myself included. And that's fine, as long as you don't keep insisting your definition is the only correct one.

R308 Oh "clearly' is it? Well why don't you shut up, you entitled twat.

I can’t imagine how Patti LuPone worked as vulnerable and defeated Fantine in the original company of Les Miserables.

R339 -- so, CLEARLY, aside from all your other stupidities, you have absolutely no idea what the word "entitled" means.

r338, my interpretation of Amanda would be of a very caring, if foolish woman, who perhaps THINKS she's very forthright and resourceful yet is ultimately very ineffectual, a dreamer. And someone who smothers her children. Very much the opposite of what I think of as Cherry's strong suits.

I think Cherry's forthrightness and resourcefulness is what made for a spectacular final scene and contrasted with the repressed and protected girl she presented in the earlier scenes of The Heiress. Gerry Gutierrez really understood the play and how the character had to evolve.

R308/R338= miserable twat

R342, I hope that I never get to see you play Amanda. Reading the play as just the story of an inept, smothering mom flattens it out -- it's what made it hard to teach THE GLASS MENAGERIE to high school sophomore boys when I had that challenge some time ago, because that's all a lot of them could see in it (projecting their own perspective onto it).

I'm much more interested in an Amanda who, however maddening/exhausting, is courageous and determined, stuck with an impossible situation and doing her considerable best to hold things together. It's Tom who is the ineffectual dreamer (note the final words she shouts at him when he leaves at the end). Amanda at least is keeping her kids fed and safe.

So, r344, do you think Cherry Jones was a great Amanda Wingfield? Did you see her in it?

My response is in the context of reacting to her performance.

I saw her in it twice, R345. I loved the whole production -- poetic and beautiful.

But whatever you do, don't ask me what I thought of the Sam Gold production.

[quote]My interpretation of Amanda would be of a very caring, if foolish woman, who perhaps THINKS she's very forthright and resourceful yet is ultimately very ineffectual, a dreamer.

Your interpretation is incorrect. As R344 explains so well, Amanda is a pragmatist, trying to make the best of a very bad situation. She gets herself a job selling magazine subscriptions by phone, just to try to bring a little more money into the household. She tries to put Laura in business school, but that turns out disastrously because Laura is so terribly shy and has no skills to make her way in the outside world. So then Amanda realizes the only hope for Laura is to marry her off to some nice guy who an support her, and she tries to do whatever she can to make that happen.

R341

[quote]And that's fine, as long as you don't keep insisting your definition is the only correct one.

If that isn't behaving in an entitled manner, what is? Thinking you should be the monitor of other people's behavior. Incidentally I never insisted anything of the kind. Twat.

I think Rackel Welch was miscasted in Womaan of they Year

r347, your explanation of why you think I'm incorrect about Amanda seems to indicate why I'm correct. As you point out, all of her attempts at being resourceful and pragmatic backfire. As I said , she cares but she's ineffectual.

She kept a roof over their head. Hardly ineffectual.

She did? I would say Tom helped out mightily.

To me your use of the word "ineffectual" makes it sound as if it's Amanda's fault that they're in the situation they're in -- as if a more resourceful woman would somehow have made it all work. How?

No, I never intended that, r353. The play isn't about a "more resourceful woman who would somehow make it all work..."

My original post on this subject was my criticism of Cherry Jones' casting. To put it very simply, IMHO Cherry Jones' persona is too forthright and resourceful, and I'll add SMART, to be believable as a dream-filled, self-deluded woman/mother who couldn't see her son and daughter for who they really were and rouse them into getting their shit together.

She's like the best kind of Girl Scout Leader who you'd want with you if you were stranded on a desert island. I love Cherry, she's a great actress with a truly unique talent; I just thought she was miscast as Amanda.

If you disagree, fine. Please just understand there can be other points of view on the matter.

Lea Michele in Funny Girl

R354, It is the same as I said up-thread about Drowsy Chaperone. Sutton Foster has the same Girl Guides/Tennis Anyone? sensibility that is all wrong for a character who is supposedly so sexually distracting that men have accidents.

Couldn't agree more, r356. And I wouldn't want to see her Amanda either, lol.

Can you imagine what she was like in Sweet Charity?

R357, I realize that it's an article of faith on DL that Sutton Foster is an overrated fraud, but she was terrific in SWEET CHARITY.

Ortud-Maxwell, we clearly have very different tastes in actors. And that's just fine.

As an eldergay who saw Gwen Verdon in Sweet Charity and also Chita Rivera in the national tour, as well as Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Shirley Booth and Julie Harris as Amanda Wingfield, I'm very content.

Sorry, I believe it's Ortrud-Maxwell.

R359, I truly envy your experiences having seen all those great ladies. But I hope that your "very content" isn't meant to come off as smug as it sounds. Classic shows aren't meant to live only in the past.

[quote] But I hope that your "very content" isn't meant to come off as smug as it sounds.

No one could come off as smug as you do, sweetie.

David Strathairn was not good in DANCE OF DEATH but neither were McKellen nor Mirren. I never believed either the latter two as an embittered married couples - more like two spiteful siblings sniping at each other. McKellen did have some good moments near the end, though.

Strathairn has a lower key, subtle acting style that was out of place in a production that bordered on camp. McKellen and Mirren played their parts in a "bigger" style so Strathairn was simply at sea. I suspect the director Sean Mathias was of little help, though I also heard Strathairn's understudy was better. The times I've seen Strathairn onstage when he was much better were Off-Broadway.

I'm another who loved Cherry Jones in MENAGERIE. I saw that production a second time at the Edinburgh Festival and she was even better there than on Broadway.

Sean Mathias, former lover of Ian McKellan was never any help to anyone.

I saw McKellen do Dance of Death in London after he did it on Broadway. It was the final dregs of the run. His co-stars were Frances De La Tour and Owen Teale and they were all bored to death. So was the audience.

[quote]My original post on this subject was my criticism of Cherry Jones' casting. To put it very simply, IMHO Cherry Jones' persona is too forthright and resourceful, and I'll add SMART, to be believable as a dream-filled, self-deluded woman/mother who couldn't see her son and daughter for who they really were and rouse them into getting their shit together.

But that's exactly where I think you're dead wrong. Yes, there are things Amanda says and does that might make it seem like she's living in a dream world -- for example, in the very first scene, when she wonders how many gentlemen callers Laura will be receiving that evening. But there are many other things she says and does that make it clear those are just fantasy games she's playing to help mike life bearable, and she absolutely has a very clear picture of the serious situation that her family is in. Also, regardless of what you wrote, I think Amanda was very resourceful in sending Laura to business school, and it certainly wasn't Amanda's fault that Laura could not function in that environment.

Also, I'll ask again -- did you feel that Cherry Jones came across as forthright and resourceful in her portrayal of Catherine Sloper in THE HEIRESS? I can't imagine you felt that way. Maybe she's just a better actress than you give her credit for.

[quote]I realize that it's an article of faith on DL that Sutton Foster is an overrated fraud, but she was terrific in SWEET CHARITY.

I was about to ask when and where Sutton Foster played Charity -- and then I remembered that I saw that production. Which certainly doesn't say much for her performance, if it made so little impression that my memory of it is so vague.

Didn't they give her a shag cut?

R366, you illustrate a problem with contemporary theater. People do not understand the characters because the characters are not modern people. Another example is Phyllis in Follies. If you think Jan Maxwell was a good Phyllis, you do not understand the character.

Amanda grew up in Blue Mountain, Mississippi, which had a population of 400 at the time (it is still under 1000.) She grew up at a time when Southern women were raised to be a decorative doll, not practical or pragmatic. She played the southern belle so long that all the decent prospects had passed. She married based on superficial charm rather than pragmatism. She literally relies on the kindness of strangers, surviving on the pity purchases of magazine subscriptions. She clearly expects Tom, as the man in the family, support them at the cost of his own identity and desires.

The problem is that today, everyone wants to make Amanda a strong woman, instead of the silly, useless, fool that she is. Granted, she is victim of the time and culture in which she was born, but she is not a strong, pragmatic woman.

Every woman must be strong in contemporary Broadway, otherwise we will cancel the show.

R369 and r370, masturbating furiously to the idea that women before 1980 were decorative flowers who never raised their voices or made a dime. Sorry your mommy let you down, boys!

R371, It is a running theme throughout Tennessee William's plays. There are plays with pre-1980 strong women, but most of Tennessee Williams female leads do not fit the characterization.

Another example is the 2001 revival of The Women. The only actresses who understood the characters were the older ones. The young actresses played their characters as if it was Sex in the City. It isn't. Having a husband is a life-and-death situation in the play. It really is the equivalent of surviving in a concentration camp. There is no feminism, only survival.

r366, I answered your question about Cherry in The Heiress at r342. Her gradual resourcefulness and forthrightness after she's betrayed by Morris is what made her performance work and gave the final scene its big payoff. She was guided by a brilliant director, Gerry Gutierrez, who really understood the play.

Anita Morris couldn't help but betray. She wasn't bad, she was just drawn that way.

R369, I have seen probably about a dozen productions of THE GLASS MENAGERIE in my lifetime, plus I even directed a production once, so I REALLY do not need you to school me about the character of Amanda Wingfield or any other aspect of the play.

What you say about Amanda's upbringing is true, BUT I thinks what makes her very sympathetic, despite her foolishness, is that she has responded to her unfortunate situation by becoming as pragmatic and clear-eyed as she can be, even though she wasn't raised to have those traits. For example, her taking one menial job after another to try to add to the family's income, her decision to put Laura in business college, her valiant attempt to find a young man for Laura to meet and marry when it becomes obvious that that's the only way Laura will be able to survive after Amanda is gone, et cetera.

Anyway, that's Amanda as I see her, and no, I don't feel I need to see her as a strong woman because that's the required present-day perspective.

[quote] I have seen probably about a dozen productions of THE GLASS MENAGERIE in my lifetime,

I'm sorry you went through that.

I think the reason women still want to play Williams' broken heroines is because there is an inner strength in them in spite of appearing fragile to modern viewers. What makes them so tragic is that do have strength, but it's not enough to get them out of their current situations. I've seen productions of Streetcar where Blanche seems hopeless and already having a breakdown from her first scene and it doesn't work. She's fragile, but not that fragile. She's still has enough strength to keep a facade going. Amanda strikes me the same way. She should be trying to remain strong for her children until she just can't anymore. It's much more interesting to see a character attempt to be strong when they want to break as opposed to someone who's already broken beyond repair. There has to be some hope or else there's no tragedy.

Excellent observations, R377. Spot on.

So, who was miscast as Amanda?

Well, Jessica Tandy was miscast as Amanda when she did it on Broadway because she was at least 30 years too old for the role. Also, Sally Field was miscast because she's the wrong physical and vocal type for the role.

[quote]So, who was miscast as Amanda?

Most people disagree with me, but I think Julie Harris was miscast in the Roundabout production.

Did Getie play Amanda?

*Gertie

There was a snippet of a recording going around several years ago that had Laurette Taylor doing Amanda. I don't know whether it was recorded from the original production or later, but it was interesting. She used a gasping speech pattern, almost like she had asthma and was suffocating.

I think what most miss about The Glass Menagerie is the squalor and desperation that the characters live in. The play premiered just at the close of World War 2. Amanda would have been one of those who lived through both WW1 and WW2 and the grind of war and poverty must have really taken a toll on her spirit.

Wasn't that a screent test?

Gertrude Lawrence played Amanda in the first film adaptation. It has a bad reputation because the ending was altered to make it more hopeful but in fact the film is otherwise OK and well acted. Gertie is very good, as are Jane Wyman as Laura, a young Kirk Douglas as the gentleman caller and Arthur Kennedy as Tom. Williams had a hand in the screenplay but was unhappy with the finished film.

How pray tell are Julie Harris and Sally Field miscast as Amanda? They may have stuck, but both actresses are more than competent to play the role.

I saw Sally Field as Amanda in a 2004 Kennedy Center production well before she appeared in the Sam Gold disaster. In the DC production, directed by Gregory Mosher, she was fine, playing Amanda as a nervous, needling woman and I thought it worked.

I've never seen the film version with Joanne Woodward but I would imagine she'd make a very good Amanda.

Joanne Woodward is one of the most overrated actresses to ever grace the screen. Not untalented, but so not worth all the fuss.

Joanne was a wonderfully unique young actress in films like No Down Payment, A Kiss Before Dying, The Long Hot Summer and her Oscar winner The 3 Faces of Eve. But something happened to her after she had her children and returned to acting. She gave mostly very dull performances onscreen in the 1970s onward, including that disappointing Glass Menagerie (directed by her husband). Maybe Rachel, Rachel was a notable exception.

[quote]How pray tell are Julie Harris and Sally Field miscast as Amanda?

I don't think Julie Harris was miscast, but as per my previous post, I felt Sally Field was miscast in terms of her voice and her physical appearance. I've seen many fine Amandas, all of them very different from each other, but I just don't think Amanda should look and sound like Sally Field, even if I can't explain exactly why I feel that way.

Joanne Woodward is unknown to most people under 50.

I saw Julie Harris. First off, she was 70 when she did the role. Was she 50 when she had Tom and Laura?

I didn’t think it was well acted. It was one of those performances that you were supposed to love because you were watching a legend, but she seemed too “old school Boston” (sorry I can’t think of the word. It’s like Frances Sternhagen, while she has given excellent performances, she always comes across as New England cold). There didn’t seem to be any warmth in Julie’s performance, just a crotchety old lady haranguing her grandchildren.

Julie Harris sabotaged her legacy when she joined the cast of "Knot's Landing".

Speaking of Tenessee Williams, who did the best Maggie the Cat? And who was completely miscast?

Barbara Bel Geddies

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Ashley (who was Williams personal favorite)

Jessica Lange

Kathleen Turner (who thought Liz Taylor's version stunk)

Ashley Judd

Anika Noni Rose (in the Debbie Allen production)

Scarlett Johannsen

And Kim Stanley

And Natalie Wood! Shit!

Vivien Leigh would have been good as Amanda Wingfield.

An old guy I know who has a cottage next door to where my family did told me he saw Laurette Taylor in it. He didn't tell me much about it, just that she was "so natural." He was in the Army at the time and got tickets to a lot of shows.

I always wanted to see Brenda Blethyn play Amanda.

R395 Patricia Neal replaced Barbara Bel Geddes, I bet she was good.

Provided she could handle the accent (which is a rare thing with British actors) I think Patricia Routledge circa the Talking Head monologues would have been a phenomenal Amanda.

Oh that's bullshit. Harris was able to stay relevant by being on Knots Landing, which was by far the best acted of any nighttime soap then and now.

[Quote] I always wanted to see Brenda Blethyn play Amanda.

I did.

I would say Barbara Bel Geddes was the most miscast of all the Maggies you listed, but Scarlett Johansson's performance was probably the worst.

R404 Did you see her? She created the role, the original creators, Williams, and Kazan, must have liked her (Kazan had already directed her on stage and on film) and it was a hit play.

R405, I did not see the show with Bel Geddes, but I always felt she was severely miscast just in terms of type. Then I saw that clip of her in a scene from the show, with Ben Gazzara, that was included in Rick McKay's BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE documentary, and my feeling was confirmed.

I've seen it, I thought she was as perfect - but it was less than two minutes. You have to see an actual, full performance to judge it. I thought Ben G. was too stylized but again I think the whole performance needs to be seen - Brick doesn't do a lot in the first act and he's being distant to her. Anyway that's just my opinion.

Lois Nettleton was the Maggie understudy in the original production

R406, she isn't miscast, but she is a different kind of poor southern girl who married well, more scrappy and ambitious. I never liked the blowsy sexuality of Taylor or Ashley. Bel Geddes has a certain boyish quality that makes sense for a gay man to marry. In my opinion, the overtly sexual woman would have scared Brick away.

Of course, I have to mention the worst miscasting in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Dream Skipper.

R407, I'm not judging the quality of her acting. Why do I have to see more than a two-minute clip to decide that I think Bel Geddes was very miscast in terms of type? To me, she's pretty in a sweet-girl-next-door kind of way, rather than drop-dead gorgeous and sexy, which I really think Maggie needs to be. And I think even Bel Geddes' voice is not right for the part, because there again, it should be sexier. I think she sounds more like a peppy college freshman or a girl scout.

R406, you clearly have a completely different conception of the characters of Maggie and Brick than I do, and you are the only person I have ever heard express the opinion that Maggie should NOT be overtly sexual. To me, the story of the play only works if both Brick and Maggie are gorgeous and sexy, and I think we have to believe that they had a very sexually fulfilling marriage until Brick became so disgusted with Maggie (over Skipper) that he stopped sleeping with her. But then, I guess the source our disagreement is that I don't think Brick is supposed to be a "gay man," though I guess the jury is still out on that one.

R410, not the *only* person since the original director and, one assumes the playwright, shared that view. However, yours is the conventional interpretation nowadays. It is also worth noting that Cat is one of those plays that does not have an official script. Even the licensed acting script allows for two versions of Act III.

I believe when Bel Geddes was cast as Maggie, the role was conceived by Tennessee Williams to be a former high school cheerleader/Prom Queen grown older. And Brick, of course, was her perfect match, the high school football hero/Prom King.

So it was really the slim swarthy Italian-American Ben Gazzara who was miscast, physically at least.

Watching that clip of Bel Geddes shows us what Cherry Jones would be like as Maggie.

As far as I can tell, the idea of Maggie as a smoldering sexpot originated with Elizabeth Taylor's performance in the film version. I'd love to see a revival with someone more in the Bel Geddes mold.

In the original story by Williams - "Three Players of a Summer Game" - that he adapted into the play, Brick was a redhead, hence the nickname.

[quote]As far as I can tell, the idea of Maggie as a smoldering sexpot originated with Elizabeth Taylor's performance in the film version

That's what I think, too, altough she really didn't play it as a smoldering sexpot. Elizabeth Taylor just looked very sexy in the film, and the advertising emphasizes the sexy aspect, since that's how movies are sold. Also she doesn't have the long monologues of the play, so some of her motivations might get a little too simplified in the film.

[quote]I believe when Bel Geddes was cast as Maggie, the role was conceived by Tennessee Williams to be a former high school cheerleader/Prom Queen grown older.

If nothing else, I think the fact that Maggie IS the "cat on a hot tin roof" doesn't jibe with your interpretation. I think she's supposed to be very sexy in a sultry, seductive way, and it seems to me that everyone who has successfully played her since the miscast Barbara Bel Geddes has been cast with that in mind and has gone for that sort of interpretation. You are free to disagree, but it doesn't change my opinion.

I think you're too attached to the sex, needy people trope.

*sexy, needy people

R416, both interpretations are wrong. Maggie grew up poor. She wasn't a prom queen or a cheerleader. She probably had to work every minute she wasn't in school.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, doesn't mean what you think it does. It doesn't mean she is the pampered pussy from a Fancy Feast commercial. It means she is agitated and can't be still, the opposite of sultry and seductive which are both pretty passive.

Beeny Feildsten was totally miscasted in her roll as a Funny girl

Would she have been more appropriately cast as a sausage roll?

Louise Lerman was too Jewish looking to play Pippi (Longstocking).

Was "cat on a hot tin roof" somehow interpreted as a euphemism of a cat in heat (whether intended by Tennessee or not)? The film's publicity managed to make it into something very sexy with photos of Elizabeth Taylor in a skintight white satin slip clutching longingly onto an ornate bed headboard.

R423, probably. I suspect that the overtly sexy Maggie was intended to throw the straight male audience members a bone. Cheryl Crawford, who produced many of Tennessee Williams plays told me that they were always a hard sell for the straight males in the 1950s and 60s. Basically, women literally had to drag their husbands to see the plays. I can see the film producers really wanting to play up the cat as sex kitten aspect.

From Brooks Atkinson's rave review of the play in the New York Times:

"The acting is magnificent. There is about it that "little something extra" by which the actors reveal awareness of a notable theatrical occasion. Barbara Bel Geddes, vital, lovely and frank as the young wife who cannot accept her husband's indifference; Ben Gazzara, handsome, melancholy, pensive as the husband; Burl Ives as the solid head of the family who fears no truth except his own and hates insincerity; Mildred Dunnock as the silly, empty-headed mother who has unexpected strength of character- give marvelous performances.

There are excellent performances also by Madeleine Sherwood, Pat Hingle, Fred Stewart, R.G. Armstrong and some other good actors."

Cat opened on Broadway in 1955 and the movie in 1958. Hollywood movies could be much more open about sexuality than Broadway could. I think that’s why Bel Geddes was cast rather than someone more sexual in the Marilyn Monroe style.

Could a production work where Maggie wasn’t cast as overtly sexual? More of the idea that Brick married beneath him? On the template of Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun?

I need to reread the script. I think there are different versions with one not having Big Daddy in Act 3.

Just the opposite, R426.

The film version of Cat was a laundered version of the Broadway play.

Buster Murdaugh as Brick in the next revival. Poor child needs something to do.

[quote]Cat opened on Broadway in 1955 and the movie in 1958. Hollywood movies could be much more open about sexuality than Broadway could.

As R427 pointed out, what you wrote is the exact opposite of the truth. Where the hell did you get that ridiculous idea?

Even Neil Simon used to put in a few swear words or dirty jokes in his plays because Broadway was considered to be a bit more racy and permissive than movies.

Broadway was allowed to be permissive, but touring productions of Broadway plays often ran into trouble. The national tour of Can-Can was infamous for trouble with local censors. Film producers had to look at the big picture, not just what was possible in Times Square.

John Leguizamo, Cedric The Entertainer, and Haley Joel Osment in that tragic revival of American Buffalo. The ultimate shit show.

[quote]Cat opened on Broadway in 1955 and the movie in 1958. Hollywood movies could be much more open about sexuality than Broadway could. I think that’s why Bel Geddes was cast rather than someone more sexual in the Marilyn Monroe style.

The whole plot had to be changed for Hollywood, with the attraction of Skipper for Brick turned into an affair between Skipper and Maggie.

Richard Brooks, who wrote/directed the film of Cat, then went on to also ruin Sweet Bird Of Youth for the movies. If they had only waited a couple more years they could have made more accurate versions of both these plays.

R426-When Elizabeth Ashley jumped on that huge white bed in Act 1 of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof in 1973, she displayed her entire sex life. Maggie is a wild jungle cat in heat. That's how she should be played. Ashley Judd played her like bowl of mashed potatoes.

R435 Didn't she do it with Keir Dullea?

Keir Dullea had no idea how to play Brick. Fred Gwynne as Big Daddy stole the show. He was magnificent.

[quote] Maggie is a wild jungle cat in heat.

That is how she is usually played today, but it seems the original intention was that Maggie was an ally cat who had to fight for everything she got in life. She doesn't want to have sex with Brick for sex or to be fulfilled, she wants to have sex to get Big Daddy's money. It is a transactional act, not a sexual act.

R438 No, she loves him and misses having sex with him, she just also wants her husband to fight for what's his and not let his brother and sister-in-law get it all. She's a sympathetic character.

Barbara Bel Geddes was a very attractive, basically sexy young woman, by the way. It's not like we're talking Thelma Ritter, here.

Brick is a thankless role. Even Dream Skipper has better stuff to do.

I've seen a recording of the most recent Broadway revival of Cat and ScarJo received absolutely no entrance applause.

She would surreptitiously depart the theatre using the front entrance to avoid the stage door after every performance.

I saw the Kathleen Turner revival with her playing opposite one of the 3-named actors of the time. Don't remember him, but I think Brick and Maggie are the only characters on stage for the entire 1st act (like 45 minutes or so?).

Daniel Hugh Kelly. Easily forgettable.

Act I is all about Maggie, Act II is all about Big Daddy.

On stage, Barbara Bel Geddes, from a stage distance, could pull of leading ladies. On screen, she's much better cast as second-banana/best friend-in-waiting Midge in "Vertigo", who really is a better match for the rather sexless James Stewart.

R445, That happened a lot. Julie Harris was great in Forty Carats on stage. On film, she would have be ridiculous.

[quote]The whole plot had to be changed for Hollywood, with the attraction of Skipper for Brick turned into an affair between Skipper and Maggie.

I'm going to get flamed for this, but I honestly think that change is enough to make the plot make a lot more sense. CAT is an almost great play with some major flaws, and I think one of the biggest is that any hint that Brick is gay (or bi) and was romantically in love with Skipper -- whether that love was requited or not -- has no place in the play, because it simply doesn't ring true. I guess by that point in his career, Williams felt he had to put some degree of homosexuality in all of his plays, but in this one I find it annoying and inappropriate.

Ever been in a locker room after a game? Or roomies with an athlete after a night out? It's quite the enlightening experience. I can imagine Brick and Skipper in the shower.

R447 Yes, we all know Richard Brooks was a much greater playwright than Tennessee Williams. So glad he straightened things out for you. :/

The whole play only hingles on that one event, that Brick can't face about himself, and trying to live with the denial has made him a drunk who has given up on everything. His wife having an affair just makes so much more sense. Not.

R450, this is a trend I see in young actors. They make the *least* interesting choice possible. I am not sure if it is because they have drilled into them that acting is playing various facets of themselves, rather than to using their imagination; or, if it is because the biggest difficulty they have faced in life is "Mac or PC".

[Quote] any hint that Brick is gay (or bi) and was romantically in love with Skipper -- whether that love was requited or not -- has no place in the play, because it simply doesn't ring true.

Why? Are you the poster who's hung up on Brick and Maggie being sexy, beauty objects?

[quote]any hint that Brick is gay (or bi) and was romantically in love with Skipper -- whether that love was requited or not -- has no place in the play, because it simply doesn't ring true.

I played Brick once but it's been about 35 years. But I thought it was Skipper who was into Brick.

SparkNotes.

Cast Mario Cantone as Brick and you won't be asking the question.

Mario would be a wonderful Sister Woman. He'd get all the laughs, for sure.

R454 I hope you don't expect anyone to read Spark Notes, this isn't school.

R455 I've acted with Mario and even though he's talented I kind of think I'd be better as Brick.

In your case, R457, I'd be surprised if you could read it and comprehend it, so the post was written for the literate. Sorry. Next time, I'll post a cartoon for your enjoyment.

R458 As I said, I was in the play. I could read the play and comprehend it, as well as the short story it was based on, and most of Williams's other works. If you wanted to say somethinmg to counter my post, you should have said it instead of linking to something not only I would never read, but I'm sure no one on this thread wanted to read.

*something

Sorry, R 459, but pulling the curtain open does not constitute " being in the play." Although many curtain pullers can be very feisty, because they had dreams of being chief usher, so we'll tolerate your being a sapiophile.

[quote]As I said, I was in the play.

Well, you're in the right place, since the thread is about miscast actors.

R459, I am not going to assume anything even if this is a gay board. Are you straight or gay?

[quote]Why? Are you the poster who's hung up on Brick and Maggie being sexy, beauty objects?

Yes, I am. And Maggie and Brick have almost always been cast as "sexy, beauty objects," so I'm far from alone. That's why I think Barbara Bel Geddes was so miscast in terms of her look and her voice. And I think Gazzara was also miscast, for reasons that are a bit more complicated.

At least once during the play, Maggie refers to how beautiful Brick is, so that's in the script, regardless of your contrary opinion. I can't remember if there's any explicit reference to Maggie's beauty, but again, she is ALMOST ALWAYS cast with an actress who is beautiful and sexy, so there must be a reason for that.

I can't explain exactly why, but I think Brick is NOT intended to be seen as a repressed homosexual, and I actually think it makes the play less interesting if he's reduced to that. On the other hand, I seem to remember a line or two about Skipper having confessed that he was in love with Brick, and THAT'S a situation I find very interesting.

[Quote] she is ALMOST ALWAYS cast with an actress who is beautiful and sexy, so there must be a reason for that.

She wasn't the first time... And Hollywood was yet to play a role in the how the property was viewed...

Kim Stanley was the original West End Maggie. And Paul Massie was Brick. Neither were great beauties. I think you're stuck on soap opera thinking.

Astonishing, r464. You are actually doubling down on your Valley Girl “kinda remember a few lines” routine. Yeah, you are the expert - certainly more than dolts like Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan.

I wouldn't describe Elizaebth Asley as beautiful. Peppard, of course, was handsome.

Is there seriously someone on this website who thinks Brick ISN'T meant to be a gay man? How fucking stupid do you have to be to miss that the entire point of the play is that he's a miserable closet case? Good lord...

Julie Halliday in Bells Were Ringing

Carol Channing in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?

R470 Was she related to Judy Amdrews?

Elizabeth Ashley was beyond sexy into her 40s. Wiki tells me she was born in 1939 so she would have been in her mid 30s when she played Maggie in the mid 70s.

Perhaps not conventionally beautiful but neither was Sophia Loren.

But as to Barbara Bel Geddes, I said it upthread and I'll say it again, they originally wanted a pretty All-American girl type for Maggie. Ben Gazzara was not the All-American football hero as Brick is written, but he was considered incredibly hot as a young man with a gloriously sexy deep voice that could be heard in the upper balcony, even when he whispered.

Barbara Bel Geddes... Kim Stanley... Neither was Prom Queen.

Ben Gazzara seemed like one of the few actors in Hollywood they didn't make shave his wonderful hairy chest back in the 1950s or before. There's one terrific pirate film with sexy hairy-chested Paul Henreid as well.

My parents saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the 1950s, and they talked about Barbara Bel Geddes's performance all their lives. They said what was so remarkable about it was that you really believed in the end that was Maggie was willing to craft the stupid lie that she was pregnant (which could be easily disproved) because she was so strong-willed and resourceful and desperate to have a better marriage, and that they could believe Brick would be impressed by that to give their marriage another shot.

They always loved her because of that, and watched "Dallas" just because she made such a huge impression on them when they were young.

[quote] Katharine Hepburn in Coco, at least from clips that I've seen. I'm mystified as to how that came to be. She looks nothing like Chanel, and from what I've heard, didn't even attempt a French accent. Yet audiences apparently ate it up night after night and it made a bundle.

What I've always heard was that by that time, Katharine Hepburn was considered the most important of all actresses alive because she had just won the two Oscars in the mid 60s, which (alongsiode her Oscar for Morning Glory) put her in first place for having more Best Actress Oscars than any other actress (a distinction she still holds since she won a fourth for On Golden Pond). People just wanted to see her plus the big razzle-dazzle Cecil Beaton spectacle, and didn't care that she couldn't dance or sing or speak with a French accent.

As has been pointed out many times, when she left the production, her replacement, Danielle Darrieux, not only could act but could also genuinely dance and sing AND had an authentic French accent... and the production closed in a month. People just wanted to see Hepburn be Hepburn.

Piss off, R467. Except for you and a couple of other weirdos posting here, everyone who knows anything about CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF knows that both Brick and Maggie are supposed to be very beautiful and sexy. If not, their chemistry in the play doesn't work, and neither does the play as a whole.

As for you and your ilk, R469, if the simple answer to the central conflict in this play is that Brick is a closeted, self-loathing homosexual, I think that makes the play pretty much a waste of time. Far more interesting if the truth is what I think it is: That Brick and Skipper had a very close relationship, and perhaps Skipper was in love with Brick, but Brick and couldn't return his affections in that way. And Brick is incensed at Maggie's or anyone else's attempt to reduce his and Skipper's relationship to something sexual.

[quote]But as to Barbara Bel Geddes, I said it upthread and I'll say it again, they originally wanted a pretty All-American girl type for Maggie.

Apparently so, but why? Do you think that type is what the lines of the play call for? And why would a pretty, All-American girl type be described as a "cat?"

R478, if you're right, then why did Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams cast Bel Geddes and Gazzara in those roles?

R479, when Maggie says that she feels all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof, she's not doing that to show how sexy and sultry she is.

R462 It says miscast Broadway actors, this wasn't Broadway. Sorry if you think you're funny, you're not.

Not sure what I did to cause R458 and/or R461 to be so insulting. Sorry I mentioned I was in the play. II guess that triggers you? Anyway, don't bother to reply, I probably won't read it.

[quote]If you're right, then why did Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams cast Bel Geddes and Gazzara in those roles?

As I've said repeatedly, I don't know why Bel Geddes was cast. As for Gazzara, he was sexy, but as I said, I think he was miscast in other ways.

[quote]When Maggie says that she feels all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof, she's not doing that to show how sexy and sultry she is.

I know that. The hot tin roof metaphor means she finds herself in a very uncomfortable situation, because her husband hates her and has stopped sleeping with her, and also she was never really accepted into his family. But the fact that she compares herself to a cat to begin with is telling. I can definitely see Elizabeth Taylor or Elizabeth Ashley or Kathleen Turner being called a cat, but definitely not Barbara Bel Geddes. Anyway, that's my opinion, and of course you don't have to agree with me.

Pussy on a Hot Tin Roof?

[quote]Not sure what I did to cause [R458] and/or [R461] to be so insulting. Sorry I mentioned I was in the play. II guess that triggers you? Anyway, don't bother to reply, I probably won't read it.

It's not that you were in the play, it's your arrogant and condescending attitude. Don't expect a supportive reply when you display such disdain for anyone else's contributions. That's all.

Watching Body Heat now-it leaves Criterion on Sunday. Damn, William Hurt would have been a great Brick opposite her rather than Daniel Hugh Kelly.

Sorry if it has been mentioned but I've always wondered what did people really think of Susan Lucci's run in Annie Get Your Gun? I know Bernadette Peters won the Tony and most people said Reba would have if she could've been nominated. But, Lucci, Cheryl Ladd, and Crystal Bernard just seem to have existed.

Google is your friend, R486!

LUCCI TAKES AIM AT ‘ANNIE’ By Clive Barnes (New York Post) 31 December 1999

Bernadette Peters she’s not. Ethel Merman she wasn’t. Who, then, was she? She was Susan Lucci making her Broadway debut as Annie in “Annie Get Your Gun” at the Marquis Theatre. Indeed, to judge from her Playbill biography, it seems Lucci was actually making her professional stage debut — in anything anywhere. Well, what the heck — if you’ve got to start somewhere, why not make it the top?

Now, she is just a replacement for the redoubtable Peters — who’s taking a well-earned vacation — with Lucci filling in until January 16, when Peters returns. Normally, we would probably not trouble to review such a comparatively brief stint, but in this case a great deal of interest has been aroused. TV cameras were actually brought in to view Lucci’s first performance on Monday.

As the producers decided not to invite the print press, I bought a seat — or rather my employer did — for $60, which seemed like a lot of money for a mezzanine seat toward the back.

The show was an interesting experience for me; I probably knew less about Lucci than almost anyone else in the audience. Soap operas are an addiction I have never even sampled, so I only knew Lucci by reputation as a daytime diva and of her eventually successful odyssey to win an Emmy Award. I also recall her as TV pitch-person for a car company and liked her perky personality.

So how was she? I would give her passing grades in both acting and singing (amplification is a wonderful assist) and an A+ for sheer spunk. Her seemingly frail body has the nerve of Old Nick — which is attractive. At the end, the audience gave her a standing ovation, though, in fairness, it also applauded the first time it saw the revolving stage move.

What she lacked, apart from experience, was much real presence, that sense of stage charisma that all legendary roles in Broadway musicals absolutely demand. The producers, Barry and Fran Weissler, were cashing in on her name recognition and fame. Lucci, far more honorably, was cashing in on their cashing in to widen her horizons. But, for the moment at least, she shouldn’t give up her day job.

Should you see “Annie” while Peters is vacationing? Well, I would wait. But if you are an out-of-towner and this is your only chance, the production is in good shape, Tom Wopat remains an absolutely terrific Frank Butler, and Lucci is no disgrace. So give it a whirl. But if you intend to sit in the rear mezzanine, go to the half-price ticket booth. Believe me, you’ll feel better about your seat.

After a couple minutes of searching, I haven't yet found any official reviews of Cheryl Ladd's Annie. But there's this (also from THE NEW YORK POST):

REBA HITS THE MARK – BROADWAY NEWCOMER BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO ‘GUN' by Michael Riedel 16 February 2001

Bull's-eye! That’s what producers Fran and Barry Weissler have hit by putting Reba McEntire into ANNIE GET YOUR GUN . . . [S]he has transformed a mildly successful show into a smash hit. Last Friday, the day the critics threw their hats in the air, ANNIE sold more than $200,000 worth of tickets. Over the weekend another $500,000 came flying in. This week, the daily take has hovered around $150,000 – an enormous jump from the $20,000 to $30,000 a day the show had been doing when Cheryl Ladd was playing Annie Oakley.

R487 Yeah I saw things like that I was just hoping someone on here had first hand knowledge. Being DL it is a good chance at least one person on here actually saw her perform.

This BroadwayWorld thread has some comments that could interest you, R489. 1 or 2 of them seem to have liked Ladd in the part. There's also an interesting claim that 2 songs (which 2??) were dropped when Ladd took over.

R490 Thanks I had forgotten all about broadwayworld.com.

You might be interested to know that before the Broadway revival, Suzanne Sommers wanted to do a tour of Annie get your Gun. She was given a hard NO.

I’m surprised the your estate turned her down. I mean I know she’d be shiteous in the part, but she would have sold tickets in the 90s in flyover states with people excited to see a TV star in person. Usually making money trumps integrity.

New Yorkers ( especially the gay theater queens) would have flocked to Broadway had she replaced Bernadette or Reba.

[quote]He’s not involved with Mormon anymore.

It was indeed reported that Rudin is no longer involved with MORMON, but it was also reported that he'd be stepping down from active involvement in his other shows, and obviously that turned out to be a lie. But maybe MORMON is different, since it has been running for years, and MAYBE he really is no longer involved in that one.

To the guy who thought Barbara Bel Geddes and/or Ben Gazzara were miscast in Cat (despite never having seen them in it) which Broadway actors of the time would have been better?

R496-Bert Lahr and Nancy Walker.

With Ashley Judd as Maggie in that misbegotten Cat On A Hot Tin Roof revival with Ned Beatty and Jason Patric, it should have been retitled Cow On A Hot Tin Roof.

R498, God will get you for that.

R496, I'm tempted not to answer your question because of your sarcastic tone, and your weird implication that I can't hold the opinion that Barbara Bel Geddes and Ben Gazzara were miscast in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF in terms of type without having seen them in the show, and basing my judgment only on that brief clip in BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE. Would you need to have seen Elaine Stritch in THE KING AND I to feel that she was miscast as Anna?

But to answer your question anyway: Offhand, I can't think of a stage actress in the mid 1950s who would have been better or ideal casting for Maggie, but on the other hand, I don't think the person cast necessarily needed to be a star or even an already established name. Well, I can think of one person, but she would have been a little too old at the time: Vivien Leigh

Anybody see Sandy Dennis as Maggie? She played it in summer stock.

R500 I wasn't being that sarcastic, although I believe you do need to see an actor's performance before they're deemed to have been truly miscast. And I don't want to split hairs, but I don't really think cast against type is synonymous with miscast. The "mis" in miscast really seems to imply that the actor was mistakenly or erroneously cast. And how would you know that without seeing them play the part, from start to finish?

For example, I saw Ben Gazzara In Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? He was cast against type, in my opinion, but not really miscast. He didn't impress me (neither did his costar, Colleen Dewhurst), but that's another thing altogether.

Young, beautiful, sexy actresses in the 1950s didn't aim for Broadway, they tried their luck in Hollywood. Broadway cast young women like Bel Geddes, Kim Stanley and Julie Harris to fill those roles or the forgotten Vanessa Brown, who played The Girl in the hugely successful 7 Year Itch. This was true even in most musicals, where the young women playing beautiful ingenues were the passably pretty Lisa Kirk, Jo Sullivan, Isabel Bigley....I can't even think of other names.....

R503, what people forget, or never knew is that theater lighting was still pretty crude. You needed actresses with strong features on stage. A typically pretty woman would disappear. The actresses had character which often prevented them from succeeding in film. Margaret Leighton, Uta Hagen, Julie Harris, Shirley Booth, Gwen Verdon, Jo Van Fleet, Judy Holliday, etc.

Audrey Hepburn was the exception.

Well, there was Patricia Neal (who replaced Bel Geddes when she left the show) - a film star who started on Broadway in Another Part Of The Forest (I think) and was also in The Children's Hour revival and later played the mother in The Miracle Worker with Anne Bancroft. There was Eva Marie Saint, who probably wouldn't have been the type, necessarily. Audrey Hepburn (who starred in Ondine and I think won a Tony) was *really* the wrong type. Shelley Winters (who starred in A Hatful Of Rain) might have been pretty good. Gena Rowlands was on Broadway at the time and would have been good, too.

Patricia Neal, maybe, though she was really typecast back then, at least in Hollywood, as playing glacial sophisticated types.

Shelley Winters, Eva Marie Saint and Audrey Hepburn would have all been laughably bad (talk about miscast!) as Maggie in the mid-50s.

I like the idea of Gena Rowlands, though I don't think she had the box office name of Bel Geddes when they were casting Cat.

[quote]I wasn't being that sarcastic, although I believe you do need to see an actor's performance before they're deemed to have been truly miscast. And I don't want to split hairs, but I don't really think cast against type is synonymous with miscast. The "mis" in miscast really seems to imply that the actor was mistakenly or erroneously cast. And how would you know that without seeing them play the part, from start to finish?

Thanks for explaining, it's now clear that you and I simply hold to very different definitions of the word "miscast," hence our disagreements. But I really don't understand your definition -- what would "mistakenly" or "erroneously" cast mean if we're not talking in terms of type or personality or skill set?

"For example, I saw Ben Gazzara In Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? He was cast against type, in my opinion, but not really miscast. He didn't impress me (neither did his costar, Colleen Dewhurst), but that's another thing altogether."

On paper, that looked like it could be a very interesting production, but most comments I heard from people who saw it were pretty negative. You would think at least Dewhurst would nail the part. Albee himself directed it so it's clearly an example of not having an author direct his own work.

The only other time I wasn't impressed with Dewhurst was in a lackluster revival of LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT with Jason Robards (it was done in repertory with AH, WILDERNESS!).

Dewhurst was great. But it was badly directed and 3/4 miscast.

I also was not that impressed with Colleen in a Broadway comedy called An Almost Perfect Person. I actually liked her more on TV.

[quote]But I really don't understand your definition -- what would "mistakenly" or "erroneously" cast mean if we're not talking in terms of type or personality or skill set?

I just think miscast implies a totally negative, bad casting choice. Like Misalliance, or misapply, it basically means something that shouldn't have happened. While someone can be cast against type and be successful - Fred Gwynne as Big Daddy in the 1970s revival Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, for example. A far cry from big, heavy set, country boy type, Burl Ives. Or any of the subsequent, earlier Big Daddy actors. Or Donna Reed as the prostitute in From Here To Eternity, if you didn't see it and only read the book, you might think cord-fed, blonde, wholesome Donna Reed would be "miscast," but she was just cast against type, and not actually miscast.

Okay. Not to be belabor it, but since Donna Reed and and Fred Gwynne, for example, turned out so well in those roles, I would say there were NOT miscast, even though some people might initially have thought they were. And also, there is no reason why Big Daddy has to be cast with a heavy-set actor just because Burl Ives was heavy-set. "Big" could be thought of as referring to the character's height, or even simply the fact that he's the big man of the family and on the plantation.

Every single woman who was cast as Peter Pan. I don't get it. Just cast a boy. It's just dumb- I saw it with Sandy Duncan on Broadway, I don't get it.

I agree about Fred Gwynne and Donna Reed. Excellent examples. They weren't miscast, just cast against type.

For Gwynne not only his lack of porcine heft but also the urban goofiness he most famously displayed in Car 54, Where Are You? and The Munsters. Though he had been a trained NY theater actor for years before TV stardom, most audiences had never seen him play anyone as lethal as Big Daddy.

From Here to Eternity also had the cast against type proper Englishwoman Deborah Kerr playing the slutty American military wife, who, like Reed, made both ladies' performances so much more interesting and less predictable.

[quote] I saw it with Sandy Duncan on Broadway, I don't get it.

Wait til you see Elliot Paige in it, that'll shut you up.

[quote]Okay. Not to be belabor it, but since Donna Reed and and Fred Gwynne, for example, turned out so well in those roles, I would say there were NOT miscast, even though some people might initially have thought they were.

R511 And since Barbara Bel Geddes got great reviews and was nominated for a Best Actress Tony for Cat, I would say she was not miscast, either. Even though some people might think she was.

This might not be Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but it is a scene one could imagine in a Tennessee Williams play and BBG handles herself very well, why would anyone think she couldn't? Sure she was never the sexiest actress but she was always quite good.

[quote]And since Barbara Bel Geddes got great reviews and was nominated for a Best Actress Tony for Cat, I would say she was not miscast, either. Even though some people might think she was.

Maybe the reason you don't think she was miscast and I do is simply that we have very different conceptions of the role, and I'm entitled to mine as much as you're entitled to yours. It's my OPINION that Barbara Bel Geddes was miscast as Maggie and Donna Reed was well cast in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, regardless of the reviews. Understand?

[quote]This might not be Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but it is a scene one could imagine in a Tennessee Williams play and BBG handles herself very well, why would anyone think she couldn't? Sure she was never the sexiest actress but she was always quite good.

I never questioned her acting ability. For the umpteenth time, I think she was wrong for Maggie in terms of both physical type and personality, and yes, part of that is that I think she just wasn't sexy enough for the role in the way that was required. You are free to disagree, but I hope at least you'll agree that Bel Geddes was a very different type than Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Ashley, Kathleen Turner, and many other women who have famously played the role.

R517 Sorry, I didn't mean to direct the comment to you but just to people in general. As I said she was never the sexiest actress. If you told people in the 1950s that BBG and Jane Wyman would spend the 80s as the matriarchs of two prime time racy soap operas they would've asked if you'd been smoking that funny stuff. I think it would have been interesting to see her performance.

I remember the only time I've actually seen it live on stage, it was a perfectly fine regional or amateur production, I can't really remember, but the Maggie was less Elizabeth Taylor and more like what I would describe BBG, a pretty yet thoroughly ordinary girl. It seemed to bring a different energy to the material. I wouldn't say better but I wouldn't say it was bad either, just different.

No love for the television production of Cat with Natalie, RJ, Olivier and Maureen Stapleton?

No. No love for that, r519.

It was a piece of shit, with Larry and Bob leading the pack.

I'm probably the only one here who didn't think Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman were all that great in those parts. But because they played them in a big film, the characters will probably forever be defined by those performances. Not that there was anything bad about the performances (and it was also the writing, which over simplified everything) but I didn't think they had the depth they could have, or brought out all the sides of the characters.

I can remember my parents going on and on about the film of CAT as well as VERTIGO for years and years. Those films were huge cultural landmarks of the 1950s.

R523 My parents never mentioned either of them, but they did talk about The Trouble With Harry, Auntie Mame, The Night Of The Hunter, and their favorite, Picnic.

*...and Roman Holiday.

Clive Barnes wrote for the NY Post?!?! That is the most shocking thing I have read on DL this season.

R526-Actually, he mostly slept for the NY Post.

What do you know. ATC started this very thread yesterday.

Sienna Miller in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

R519, well at least RJ could relate to the character of Brick

Lindsey Graham could have nailed the role of Amanda Wingfield

Lindsey. With Rand Paul as Tom, Marsha Blackburn as Laura, and Matt Gaetz as the Gentleman Caller.

Matt Gaetz and the word gentleman just do not go well together.

I would rather see Matt Gaetz as a real life Sebastian Venable.

In a 'One Night Only' performance

John Benjamin Hickey as Flan in that cheap fucking production of Six Degrees Of Separation. Actually, JBH in anything.

Now that Katrina is out of work, any chance she'll take over as Miranda in Devil Wears Prada? Or one of the queens in Six? Or one of the queens in Kinky Boots? Or take over the role of Samantha in And Just Like That?

She should take a nice , long vacation. Perhaps for several years.

I didn't see this latest COMPANY (I've seen it 5 times, and that's enough for now), but Lenk was wonderful in THE BAND'S VISIT and especially INDECENT.

I don't know about miscast, but speaking of COMPANY, Raul Esparza was the most overwrought Bobby I ever saw. It was impossible to believe any woman (or man) would find his Bobby remotely appealing.

R539, His performance was an emotionless monotone. And he lost the Tony to David Hyde Pierce for Curtains.

No, R540, Raul's choice was to play all of the scenes very coolly but to sing all of the songs very emotionally. I guess you somehow missed that.

R541 What was the point of that?

It was " brave," R542

R543, And it lost him the Tony.

This won't make me popular, but Cherry Jones and Zachary Quinto in "The Glass Menagerie" (Booth Theatre, 2013). She was chomping away at the scenery and he was just exuding "mediocre audition." I couldn't buy his "suhthuhn" accent either.

In that awful production, Cherry thought she was playing Mama Rose in Gypsy.

[quote]Raul's choice was to play all of the scenes very coolly but to sing all of the songs very emotionally. I guess you somehow missed that.

[quote}What was the point of that?

Well, R542, maybe it occurred to Raul that most of Bobby's songs, except for "Barcelona," can be played as interior monologues. So maybe he decided that his Bobby would have a cool, laid-back personality when relating to his friends and his girlfriends in real life but become very emotional when singing his interior monologues. You may not agree with the choice, but I think it's an interesting and valid one.

Amy Madigan as Stella in Streetcar. Pure redneck and not at all believable. Just terrible.

Madigan was the best part of the production.

R547, And to repeat, it cost him the Tony.

R549 = Ed Harris

Jesus! John Leguizamo in ART? What fucking role could this jerk possibly play?

Possibly the canvas?

I'm surprised Baldwin didn't hold out for the role of Walter Lee in that Raisin In The Sun revival.

Josh Groban as Sweeney Todd is about as miscast as you're likely to get, unless they get Audra to play Auntie Mame.

R140, the effect you are describing is one that Laurents used in HIS productions of Gypsy.

The objection with the design, was that Mendes wanted to use full bright colored sets for the onstage numbers. The off-stage scenes would be presented more minimally.

Also, Mendes really followed the music in his staging (notably the big cross on Goodbyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeee, in Some People). He showed up how tin-eared Laurents was and I am sure that rankled.

Look out for Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish in a revival of Gods of Carnage.

R557-Oh, please God, NO!!!!!!!!!!

Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford in Sweeney Todd!

Who woke up R559?

Karen Carpenter in "Annie Get Your Gunt."

Helen Lawson in "Song of Bernadette - The Musical," in the Linda Darnell role.

Michael Urie as Arnold in Torch Song Trilogy and Mercedes Ruehl as his mother. Urie was woefully ill-suited, both physically and professionally, for the role. And I was surprised Ruehl could manage to open her mouth with all that plastic surgery. She was an embarrassment. Oh Hell, they both were.

Josh Groban in Sweeney Todd.

Too soon?

All the hand-wringing in prospect of Josh Groban's Sweeney seems a bit much to me. No, he's not likely to match some of his predecessors in the acting department, but there have been any number of "voice-first" Sweeneys (Bryn Terfel and Norm Lewis) come to mind, and I for one am looking forward to hearing his beautiful sound in that beautiful music. I was also pleasantly surprised by how effective he was in NATASHA PIERRE, though obviously that's not as large or demanding a part.

Karen Olivo in anything.

Helen Lawson as Michele Lee's replacement in Seesaw.

What were they thinking?